Today I discovered the world of Greasemonkey scripts, thanks to my friend Abhijeet Mukherjee over at Make Use Of. I know that Greasemonkey scripts have been around for awhile now but, I’ve never really took the time out to try any of them. Now that I have though, I’m glad I did & I’m now addicted!

What is Greasemonkey?

“Greasemonkey is a plugin for the Firefox web browser. It allows you to change how your favorite pages behave and look. There are many scripts that have already been written, and if you know javascript you can easily create your own!”

If you’re new to Greasemonkey, you’ll first need to install the Greasemonkey addon.

As a side note, I’ve been having a lot of problems with Firefox 3.0 lately, including not being able to get the Greasemonkey addon to work. I am currently using the latest version of Flock browser & so far Greasemonkey works great with it! The issue with Firefox 3.0 could just be on my end, but just in case I’m letting you know ahead of time.

After installing the Greasemonkey addon, your next step is to head over to the Userscripts.org site where you’ll find all the scripts that work with Greasemonkey. “This site is a repository to download and install Greasemonkey scripts.” When you find one you like, just click on “install this script” & you’re done.

Userscripts.org features scripts for Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Google Reader, Gmail, Flickr & many more! Now you can customize all your favorite sites with handy, useful features!

For now, here’s my “Top 10″ favorite scripts for FriendFeed, along with a few honorable mentions. If you haven’t already, feel free to subscribe to me on FriendFeed!

1. FriendFeed Tweak Refresh Rate - How many times have you wished that you could change the refresh rate for FriendFeed? Well, now you can. I haven’t installed this script since I’m happy with the automatic refresh rate but, I know a lot of people who complain about it. So, here’s a simple solution.

2. FriendFeed Identi.ca - Identi.ca has been getting a lot of buzz lately thanks to Twitter & all of their downtime. This scripts adds an Identi.ca tab to FriendFeed for you.

3. FriendFeed Plurk - For all you Plurk addicts out there, this script is for you! This script adds a Plurk tab to FriendFeed, which I’m sure all of the Plurk loves will adore.

4. FriendFeed Twitter - Obviously, if there’s an Identi.ca & Plurk tab, of course there’s going to be a Twitter tab! Now you can have the best of both worlds in one place (in addition to the other sites that allow this). Happy tweeting!

5. FriendFeed Digg - This script adds a Digg tab so that you can get to digging in FriendFeed!

6. FriendFeed Google Reader - This script adds a Google Reader tab, giving you yet another reason to practically live on FriendFeed.

7. FriendFeed Read Later - This is my second favorite FriendFeed Greasemonkey script. It allows you to mark items to read later and lets you easily access them from a custom FriendFeed “read later” tab (which you can see in the screenshot above).

8. FriendFeed TinyURL Resolver - This is a great script that I think Twitter (yes I said Twitter) should implement as a regular feature. It gives you a one-click instant preview of any TinyURL urls that are posted on FriendFeed. A question mark will appear to the right of the url & then you can click on it to show the actual url. I think this is a great idea because once again, I’ve heard people complain that they’d like to know what they’re clicking on without having to actually click on it.

9. FriendFeed Put Alert Thingy To Bed - Actually, I find this script pretty funny. Alert Thingy adds a “via AlertThingy” message whenever you use it, which some people find annoying. This script changes that to say “in bed” instead of “via AlerThingy” & it also does the same thing for “via twhirl”. Pretty clever.

10. FriendFeed By Service - This is my favorite FriendFeed Greasemonkey script so far. This script gives you the option to search through FriendFeed by specific services. I have heard a lot of people say that they wish this was possible on FriendFeed.

“If you’re browsing within friends, then clicking on the icons will filter by that service on your friends. If you’re browsing within a specific user, then clicking on the icons will filter by that service on that person. If you’re browsing the public timeline, then clicking on the icons will filter by that service for the public timeline.”

I love it!

Honorable Mentions:

FriendFeed Netvibes - Adds a Netvibes tab.

FriendFeed Facebook - Adds a Facebook tab.

FriendFeed Kwippy Tab - Adds a Kwippy tab (another fairly new microblogging site).

FriendFeed Reshare Any Link - Adds “reshare original link” to the more menu (under feeds). This script allows you to reshare any link on any service included on http://www.addtoany.com/.

So, anyone care to share their favorites?

Technorati Tags: grease monkey travian, greasemonkey travian, travian greasemonkey, friendfeed, flock browser, identi.ca, plurk, twitter, digg, google reader, tinyurl, alert thingy, twhirl, netvibes, facebook, kwippy

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