Users of Google+ are familiar with a new toolbar at the top of their Google+ pages. This toolbar features a link to your Google+ homepage, as well as links to Gmail, your Google Calendar, Documents, Photos, Reader, Web, and the “more” dropdown menu. When using Google+, you will also see notifications whenever you are mentioned in a post, when someone shares a post directly with you, or when someone comments on a post either you created or after you comment on someone else’s posts. You will also be notified when you are added to a circle, tagged in photos, or when someone starts a huddle conversation with you. You can also share directly from the toolbar.

Unfortunately, these functions do not extend across all Google products globally. Using an extension that customizes the Google+ bar, you can add extra functionality to this toolbar, even beyond Google+.

GTools+ is an extension for Google Chrome that customizes the Google Unified toolbar — the bar you see at the top of all of your Google products. GTools+ features the ability to personalize the Unified Google bar across all Google products. You can set which links to other Google products you would like to include in the Toolbar, which allows you to exclude or include as many links to other Google products as you would like. For example, you could choose to only include your Gmail and Calendar in the toolbar. You can also change the position of chat, bringing it into the Google toolbar. The GTools+ extension also allows you to customize the colors of the bar, including the color of the notification bubble. Other features include the ability to add a translation link in the context menu, which will auto detect the post language.

For those that live and breathe in Google products, and also find themselves devoting a significant chunk of time to Google+, GTools+ is a nice extension that can make sharing to and reading Google+ much easier. You can install GTools+ from the Chrome Web Store.