Postbox is a powerful email client based on Mozilla's Thunderbird, and, like Thunderbird, it now supports extensions. The selection of add-ons is limited right now, but it includes some useful ones: ReminderFox handles reminders and to-do items. Minimize to Tray is just what it sounds like, allowing Windows users to put Postbox in the system tray. Nostalgy adds keyboard shortcuts, and MozBackup backs up your messages and settings. This is a good start, but it'll interesting to see what other useful extensions pop up now that the door is open.

The latest build of Postbox also adds a long list of other useful features. If you're switching from Mail.app, you can now easily migrate your settings to Postbox. Postbox will now also pull photos for your contacts from OS X's address book or from Twitter. Several performance upgrades and fixes of annoying issues from earlier versions are also in place now, so it looks like a good time to consider giving Postbox a try.

Firefox has a few hidden menus that let you adjust settings or find detailed information about your web browser. For instance, typing "about:config" (without the quotation marks) into the address bar bring sup a whole slew of advanced settings options.

Future builds of Firefox will also have an "about:me" screen that will show you which web sites you visit most frequently and what time of day you do most of your browsing. But if you can't wait for Firefox 3.6, you can install a add-on that will add an about:me option to Firefox 3.0 or 3.5 beta.

Once the add-on is installed, you can click on a URL to visit a web page, or click on the red bars to see more detailed information including which pages you've visited on a domain, or what web sites you visit most frequently at a certain time of day.

[Mozilla Links]

Twitter is probably the hottest startup around without a business plan. Over the past few years, Twitter has gained millions of users, become a media darling, and started attracting celebrity tweeters like nobody's business. But the company isn't really set up to make money... yet. But Twitter co-founder Biz Stone says that's all coming soon.

What's interesting is that Stone says Twitter will buck the trend set by other web services by staying ad-free. Instead, the plan is to make money from "various add-on-tools and services" for business and professional users. For example, analytics tools, or a directory of commercial Twitter accounts. Some of those tools could be available by the end of 2009.

Stone says the company doesn't plan to show ads next to messages because a) it's not "interesting," and b) because it could tick off users. The first point sounds a bit odd, but the second one makes sense. While Gmail users have long been used to seeing ads near their email messages, imagine if every fifth message you received on an instant messaging client was an ad.

[via The Inquistr]

If you're tired of clicking on shortened URLs without knowing exactly what web site they're taking to you, Long URL Please can help. This Firefox add-on automatically converts most shortened URLs on any web site into old fashioned long and boring URLs.

The extension supports 64 popular URL shortening services including TinyURL, Snipr, bit.ly, and Digg. Long URL Please attempts not to break your page formatting, which means that you may not see the complete address in a web page. Instead, it will chop off the end of most URLs when displaying them on a web page. But if you mouse over the web address your browser status bar should fill in the blanks, letting you know whether the link goes to CNN or a less reputable site that you may not want to visit while at work.

[via Lifehacker]

Amazon, Netflix, and plenty of other web sites try to give users helpful suggestions based on their habits. If you've purchased or rented Firefly DVDs, you might be interested in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for instance. SimilarWeb does something similar - but for web sites. If you're visiting Download Squad, you might also be interested in checking out Engadget or Slashdot.

What's most interesting about SimilarWeb is the way it works with Firefox. When you install the Firefox add-on, you'll see a new button in your navigation toolbar that turns a sidebar on and off. Every time you visit a new page, SimilarWeb will find pages that cover similar topics. You can adjust the settings to display large thumbnails, favicons only, or a a list of web sites by name and favicons (you can fit far more sites on a page in this view than you can with large thumbnails). If you don't don't like having the sidebar take over the left side of your browser window you can move it to the right side.

If you want to help make SimilarWeb's suggestions better, you can visit any web page and suggest a similar site either using the sidebar menu or by clicking the little arrow next to the toolbar button.

[via Firefox Facts]

Pixlr is a web-based image editing application. We first discovered the site a few months ago, and it compares favorably to other web based graphics apps like Picnik and Fotoflexer. You can crop, resize, add effects, or paint your images. And now thanks to a Firefox plugin, importing images to Pixlr is even easier.

Once the plugin is installed, you'll notice a little icon in the Firefox status bar that you can click to automatically import any web page you're on to Pixlr for editing. Just want to edit an image from the web? No problem. Just right click and select Edit in Pixlr. The image editor will open in a new tab and load the picture automatically.

[via Firefox Facts]

The Firefox "awesome bar" in Firefox 3.0 is a location bar, search box, and history box all one package. But if that's not enough for you, UrlbarExt is a add-on that adds even more features to the awesome bar.

The plugin adds a bunch of icons to the right side of the bar, which let you do things like copy the URL of the site you're on with a single click, shorten the URL using TinyURL or a similar service, go up one level or all the way back to the root web page, tag or bookmark a page, or use a proxy server to surf anonymously. You can also search the page using Google or another search engine.

There are a bunch of customization options allowing you to change your default search engine, URL shortener, or adjust which icons show up in the awesome bar.

On the other hand, if you think the awesome bar is less than awesome and you just want an old fashioned URL bar, you can always disable it.

[via Lifehacker]

Mozilla has released an update to Snowl, a plugin first released in August, which allows you to track RSS feeds and Twitter updates in your browser without navigating away from the web page you're currently reading.

Version 0.2 includes an updated river view that groups messages together in a single column, and a new stream view that lets you see messages in your sidebar. To be honest, the stream view looks pretty much like sidebar you get from other Twitter Firefox addons lke Twitbin, TwitKit, or TwitterFox. But most of those plugins let you see detailed information about your Twitter messages, like which ones are replies or direct messages. Snowl doesn't.

Still, as you could probably guess from the low version number, Snowl 0.2 is still a work in pogress. And it does have a few nice features, like the ability to send and receive Tweets from multiple Twitter accounts.

There are a ton of Firefox add-ons or Greasemonkey user scripts that can change the look, feel, and behavior of web sites. For example, did you know that there are at least 292 Greasemonkey scripts for Gmail alone? They let you do everything from login to multiple Gmail accounts simultaneously to setting a 2 minute time limit for any new message or thread to keep you from wasting all day writing an email.

But when you visit a web site, how do you know if there are better ways to view it? Greasefire is a Firefox add-on that will tell you if there are any user scripts for the page you're visiting. When you have Greasefire and Greasemonkey installed a little monkey will show up in the bottom right corner of your Firefox status bar. If there are scripts available for the site you're viewing, the monkey's background color will change to red. And when you right click on the icon you'll see the number of available scripts. Click on that number and a window will open telling you more about those scripts.

Last week another plugin was released with a similar purpose. App Discover will theoretically tell you if there are any user scripts, Firefox add-ons, or even Adobe AIR clients that will enhance your web experience for a specific page. But unlike Greasefire, App Discover will only work on web pages where the publisher has added a bit of code to the page to let the plugin know about recommended user scripts or add-ons. And since the plugin is so new, right now the number of sites optimized for use with App Discover is hovering around zero. But that could change at any time, making this one plugin worth keeping an eye on.

[via Firefox Facts and ReadWriteWeb]

CheckBoxMate is a Firefox add-on that can save you a ton of time if you frequently need to select multiple check boxes when doing things like cleaning your email inbox or responding to surveys. The utility is considered an experimental Firefox plugin, but all that means is that you need to sign up for a free Mozilla account and login before downloading CheckBoxMate from the Firefox add-ons directory. You can also install it without an account by visiting the developer's homepage.

Once CheckBoxMate is installed, all you need to do to select multiple checkboxes is move your mouse over the first box and click to make a checkmark, and before you lift your finger from the mouse button, drag the mouse over all the other boxes you want to check. That's it.

I found that the plugin worked great with Gmail. But when I tried it with Google Docs and Zoho Docs, it was unable to identify the checkboxes. So it may not work on every web site you visit.

[via Firefox Facts]

If you do a lot of shopping at Amazon and a lot of comparison shopping or product research on Google, you might want to check out the GoogAzon add-on for Firefox. Once installed, any time you search for an item on Google, you'll also see the top search result for your query from Amazon.

If a single product listing isn't good enough, just click the "see top 10 items" button and a list of 10 items from Amazon will drop down. Hovering over a link brings up an image of the product. You can also click the Share button to email a product link.

Despite it's name, GoogAzon isn't limited to Google searches. It also works with Yahoo! and MSN Live.

GoogAzon does appear to inject an Amazon Affiliate code into the links, so the plugin's author will likely make a few bucks any time you actually buy an item found through a GoogAzon search. But it shouldn't cost you anything extra.

[via Firefox Facts]

One of the things that makes Firefox one of the best web browsers around is its support for thousands of add-ons that extend the functionality of the browser. But since most of these plugins are developed by third parties, and not Mozilla, every time the developers behind the web browser prepare a major new release, they run the risk of breaking compatibility with many of those add-ons.

So before releasing Firefox 3.1, one of the things Mozilla wants to do is make sure that as many add-ons as possible that work with Firefox 3.0 will function properly with the new browser. And they want your help.

Here's how it works. You download a beta version of Firefox 3.1 and see if your favorite add-ons work. If you run into a problem, you can leave a comment at the Mozilla Add-Ons blog.

As of today, about 28% of the most popular plugins are compatible with Firefox 3.1. And that's about 8% more than a few weeks ago, so things are moving in the right direction.

I absolutely love the popular Mac multi-chat app Adium. Not only does it support a large number of messaging protocols -- including Facebook Chat in the latest version -- it's insanely customizable. In Adium, you can change the look of everything from your contact list to your message style to your dock icon. There's an extensive library of user-created styles at AdiumXtras.com, but they're not all good.

Recently, I went on a bit of a downloading tear, rummaging through the Adium Xtra trash to discover the Adium Xtra treasure. Here, I present my findings: 8 of the slickest, most beautiful add-ons ever to grace a chat client. To check out the full range of Adium Xtras for yourself, go to adiumxtras.com.

Message Style: Cinematic

Cinematic is a smooth, dark style that fits in really well with OS X. It sports Apple's signature "reflection" effect, and uses buddy icons to show who's talking -- no text necessary. I like an uncluttered feeling when I'm chatting, and Cinematic delivers. Match it up with a darker buddy list style and wallpaper for a really put-together desktop.

There are plenty of things that set Google Chrome apart from Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer. It uses a different rendering engine. It places tabs at the very top of the screen, not under the location bar. It has a single location/search bar. And each browser tab is treated as a separate process by your operating system. Another thing that separates Chrome from the competition? It's not as extendable... yet.

You can install add-ons for web browsers like Firefox that do everything from turn the browser into an FTP client to provide email notifications. And there are user scripts that will let you change the way you interact with web pages. Google Chrome doesn't currently support either type of extensions. But it will.

At the Web 2.0 Expo in New York, Google's Ojan Vafai indicated that Chrome wll support both eventually. But first, the developers want to make sure that add-ons don't cause the browser to become unstable. Firefox add-ons, for example, can bog down the application, making it take longer to launch and more likely to crash.

While you're waiting for Google to figure things out, there are always workarounds that let you install user scripts or block ads in Chrome.

Sure, Gmail's been in beta since is launched almost four years ago. But you know that Google has thoroughly tested the email service at this point. And before publicly rolling out any features, the company conducts thorough internal tests. But now Google is getting ready to let the general public get in on the action with the launch of Gmail Labs.

Here's how it works. Starting tonight at 6pm PST, you should notice a new tab in your Gmail settings marked "Labs." When you click that tab, you'll have the option of adding new beta services that have not yet been extensively tested. As of tonight, there should be about 13 new features, including:

• A tool that lets you bookmark specific gmail messages
• Superatars tool that lets you choose custom stars to label your mail
• Mouse Gestures
• See profile pictures in Gmail chat
• An "email addict" option that lets you ban yourself from checking your email for 15 minutes

Right now all of the features will be created by Gmail engineers, but eventually Google may open the project so that third parties can create Gmail features that will be available to the general public. In the meantime, anyone can send feedback to the developers behind each add-on. Eventually the most popular add-ons will be added to Gmail.

[via WebWare and TechCrunch]