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Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity, Google, Mozilla, Freeware, Browser Tips, Browsers, Web

Unofficial Google Gears builds work in Firefox 3.5

Gears settingsIf, like me, you've become fairly reliant on Google Gears, the browser plug-in from Google that allows sites to save data for offline access, the release of Firefox 3.5 is probably frustrating you. For some reason, Google isn't on the ball, even though the impending Firefox release was available for aeons in beta.

Luckily, for those of you that are brave (or dumb) enough to install an unofficial version of the Google Gears Firefox extension, you can get your Google Gears goodness going in Firefox 3.5 right now. Lifehacker points us to the unofficial Gears download locations for Windows & Linux, and Mac OS X (Intel only), but had only tested the Windows version at the time they posted about it. I can report that I'm dumb enough to install an unofficial Gears build, and it has so far worked flawlessly on my Mac. I use Gears regularly with Gmail, GCal, GReader, and WordPress, and all are working as expected.

Hopefully Google will hurry up and release an official Gears release for Firefox 3.5, but for now I've got a solution that works. Do you use Gears? If so, do you rely on it? What sites do you use it with?

Filed under: Social Software, web 2.0

Glue: social browsing around the stuff you like

Glue

Glue is a browser add-on for people who consume movies, books and music online. It keeps track of what you're browsing on sites like Amazon and IMDB, and lets you enter your comments about each item you're browsing, and see what your friends thought about it. The name "Glue" makes a lot of sense, because it sticks together info from multiple sites for each product. If a friend reviewed a movie on Amazon, and you're looking at it on Rotten Tomatoes, you'll still be able to see their comments.

Glue also integrates with other social networking sites in interesting ways. You can link your Twitter page to Glue, and your profile will show up in the Glue Topbar when other users visit it. The Glue Topbar would be sort of annoying if it were always on, so it's fortunate that you can click to hide or show it when you're not on a Glue-enabled site. Even if a site doesn't have special Glue features, though, you can still mark it as a favorite or leave a review of it.

So far, I think Glue is on the right track. The number of sites we use to keep track of the stuff we like is getting to be unmanageable, and a browser plugin is a smart way to aggregate all that information. As long as Glue doesn't go overboard with the potential to inject advertising into the system -- there's none right now -- it could catch on quickly.

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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