10 Greasemonkey scripts you shouldn't browse without

One of the main draws for Firefox is how customizable it is, both in appearance and functionality. We've shown you some of our favorite Firefox themes, but if you're looking for more than a cosmetic change in your browsing experience, you should get to know Greasemonkey.

In case you're not already familiar: Greasemonkey is a Firefox add-on that allows you to apply powerful user-created scripts to the sites you visit. Scripts do everything from drastically changing the layout of a site to adding new menus or doing common tasks automatically. Greasemonkey can change a font that annoys you, or it can change the way you use your browser.

Firefox isn't the only browser that can take advantage of userscripts. For Webkit-based browsers like Safari, check out GreaseKit. Opera is capable of running many userscripts through its own User JavaScript feature. Some of the scripts mentioned in this post might only work in Firefox, though.

Here are ten of my favorite scripts. If you're using some good ones that you don't see here, sound off in the comments.

1. Google Account Multi-login:

If you have more than one Google account, grab this script to replace the "log out" link on most Google services with a menu that lets you quickly switch from one of your accounts to another. A nice time saver for Gmail junkies.

2. Helvetireader:

I love the way Helvetireader cleans up Google Reader. Download it if you're interested in viewing Google Reader in a simple red and white layout, all in Helvetica. It gets everything that's not essential to reading your feeds out of the way.

3. Download YouTube Video as Mp4:

Does just what it says. Causes a download link to appear right under the embed codes to the right of the video on any YouTube page. This definitely beats pasting the URL into one of those YouTube Downloader websites.

4. OinkPLUS Music Torrent Site Enhancer:

With this script, you can see artist info (bio, similar artists, tags) on popular music torrent sites like Mininova and ThePirateBay. OinkPLUS gets info from Last.fm, and it's the same music info display that was used on the late, great music torrent site Oink.

5 . Nested Twitter Replies:

If you ever get tired of clicking on username links in Twitter to see what one of your friends just replied to, Nested Twitter Replies is for you. It displays Twitter conversations as threads, so you can follow the whole thing without leaving the page.

6. Twitter and Friendfeed Short URL Expander:

Don't get Rickrolled -- does anyone still do that? -- or sent to a malicious site by a shortened URL on Twitter or FriendFeed. This script expands them so you can see what you're clicking.

7. Remove All Facebook Ads:

Self-explanatory and essential. This even gets rid of those text ads that regular ad-blocker plugins have trouble with. If you use Facebook, don't pass it up.

8. Simplepedia:

Simplepedia strips Wikipedia down to the bare bones. Just elegant, easily readable text, the links, and the included images. All of the sidebars and other layout elements are gone, leaving just the information you're looking for. Simplepedia was also recently reviewed here on Download Squad.

9. Greased Lightbox:

This script makes browsing image sites like Google Image Search, Flickr, Wikipedia, MySpace, deviantART, and FFFFOUND easier by displaying linked images at full size in a lightbox when you click them. The lightbox display includes a link to the image in its original context, in case you want to click through after you've seen it.

10. Linkify Ting:

When this script runs across some plain text that's clearly the address of a website, it turns that text into a link. This is awesome for saving you from a lot of needless copying and pasting.

FaceBook Colour Changer

Script Summary:
Gives the option of changing the facebook colour scheme to anything you want using a colour selector.

Instructions

This script is simple and easy to use. To change the colours in facebook, use the following procedure;

• Ensure you are using the Firefox browser.
• Ensure that you have the Greasemonkey add-on installed (this requires restarting your browser).
• When you have Firefox and Greasemonkey, click the install button at the top right of this page.
• Click to confirm that you wish to install the script, and it will be installed.
• Now, when viewing any page on Facebook simply go to 'Tools', 'Greasemonkey', 'Userscript Commands...' and then 'Customise facebook colours...'. See the image below for help with this. (Alternatively the same menu can be shown when right-clicking on the monkey on the bottom right).
• Select the colours you'd like facebook to be, click "Set!", and you're done!

Changing the facebook icon in the top left is simple too. Simply enter the URL of an image on the menu box. Leaving the boxes blank gives the facebook default, and leaving the hover image blank defaults to the normal image. The initial default colours are set to facebook's default.

Any problems or suggestions are welcome in the script discussions.

NB. you need to be using the Firefox web browser with the Greasemonkey extension installed to use this script

Screenshot

Below is a screenshot of where I have picked a pink and black theme, but you can pick any colours you wish.

Customise colours by selecting the menu shown below (whilst you're on a Facebook page);

And pick colours using the box that pops up;

Install It
How do I Use it?

Userscript makes Wikipedia pages look more encyclopedic

Wikipedia is a great resource, but the layout is a bit much if you're only there to do a little reading and learn some things that might, in reality, be actual facts. As is the case with most big-name sites, a userscript is available that cleans up the cluttered default layout and makes Wikipedia items look more like pages from a printed encyclopdeia.

Load an article, then install Simplepedia and reload. Gone are the logo, tabs, navigation sidebar, edit links, and just about everything else that isn't actual information related to your topic. The end result is a much tidier page layout that is free of unwanted distractions - except words like "hammer pants" in the article I captured.

To see how the result compares to the original article, just click the image. Contrary to what Hammer might tell you, you can, in fact, touch it.