My quick guide to 10 easy steps any Firefox user can take:

1. The SurfClarity addon. Permanently and elegantly block unwanted domains from Google search results.

2. Get your Google search results in widescreen, arranged as three columns. Stop Google from preventing you from copy-and-pasting links from results.

3. AdBlock Plus, of course — removes all Google text ads and most pop-ups. It also lets you turn off Google Suggest (i.e.: the flickery “suggestion words” that appear in Google’s search box). In AdBlock’s ‘Options’ / ‘My Adblocking Rules’, simply block the domain:   clients1.google.com

4. The Firefox GreaseMonkey script New Google Ad-block blocks new types of page-integrated ads that Google is now adding to results. If you find you’re seeing too many Flash adverts, use Flashblock.

5. Stylish for Firefox and its userstyles.org library. This lets you easily apply your own CSS, or load up ready-made designs, to style any website that uses CSS. Give Flickr a dark grey background, for instance. Or make Facebook a stylish black and grey (works with the latest changes). Or make YouTube elegant with Black & Grey and videos auto-play in widescreen using the YouTube Resizer. Sadly there’s not yet a ready-made style that will tame Amazon UK‘s bloat.

6. YouTube Comments Snob gets rid of most of the fluff in the YouTube comments. There are similar add-ons that remove spammy games and suchlike from Facebook. Animated GIF “avatar icons” on message boards can be stopped, simply by hitting “Esc” on your keyboard.

7. Tired of Amazon’s bloat? Sadly there’s not yet a ready-made Stylish style that will tame Amazon UK‘s bloat. But there is a very lightweight Amazon UK mobile site. (U.S. version here).

8. Ad-Aware is a highly-regarded free real-time adware sensor and blocker. Works alongside most anti-virus applications, without conflicting.

9. Disable Text Ads v9.0 for Firefox GreaseMonkey. It could do with an update (last update was in Dec 2008) but is still useful to have. Blocks text-based adverts not blocked by other popular applications.

10. Disable Google home-page fade-in for Firefox GreaseMonkey. And Disable Autocomplete.

Don’t try any of the above if you’re one of these people…