The last five extensions on this computer are among those I’d r-e-a-l-l-y miss. So, without further ado…

Most of you know that I’m a major fan of Gmail. The one thing it lacks that’s really noticeable, though, is a Gmail Delete Button. Well, it did, anyway – no longer. This extension sticks a button up on the toolbar of your Gmail window, allowing you to consign those illustrated prayers and other glurge to e-mail limbo with just one click. BEWARE, however: it moves around some, depending on whether or not the Send button is visible, and until I got used to it I deleted a few things by accident. Mindless clicking is never good, especially in mail programs, so I consider it a learning experience.

The Google Toolbar for Firefox is so much a part of my browsing now that I’d have to relearn how to surf without it. It’s a bit annoying that it takes up a whole line of toolbar for about 1/3 bar worth of buttons, but you can always adjust the search window to take up the extra space – oh well. We can hope that Google has a lot more toys up their sleeves that will eventually use it all. Like IE’s version, it will do things that no reasonable person needs to do very often, but the useful features redeem it (almost) completely, in my eyes. And, if you exclude the presence of Google, there’s no adware or spyware. Google sees all and knows all anyway, so what the heck.

Besides, as I’ve said many times, both here and elsewhere, anyone who goes online and thinks they retain even a vestige of real privacy is – well, let’s just say they better still be careful. Google “internet+NSA” sometime when you have nothing else to do.

Tab Mix Plus gives you lots of control over Fx’s tabbed browsing options. There are several similar extensions, and all do a good job. I installed this one a month or so ago when the previous one I had didn’t play nice with a beta version of Firefox. It works nicely, so I didn’t bother upgrading the other one.

(One disadvantage of extensions is that they are not an actual part of the browser code, and upgrades can render some of them inoperative until the individual programmers get around to updating their gizmos. It’s not a big deal, and the versatility of having several hundred of the things available more than makes up for it.)

Bloglines Toolkit allows you to subscribe RSS feeds to Bloglines from the right-click menu. I’ve used Bloglines for a long time, and don’t find any of the machine-based readers to be all that superior. Of course, my needs are simple. If you don’t use the service, then you don’t need the extension. On the other hand, if you don’t use newsfeeds at all, you might take a look. Bloglines Toolkit also puts an icon on the status bar of Fx that notifies you of new postings and takes you to the site with one click.

I’ve mentioned Fasterfox here before. It’s not available from the regular extensions page, although it is supported by mozdev.org. Ff is an easy way to tweak Fx for performance, and I recommend it highly. It’s not a big deal with dialup, but with broadband it increases performance a bunch. Set it on “turbocharged” and let it go, unless it causes problems on some of the sites you visit; then you might have to tone it down a bit. It installs itself in Options under the Tools menu.

That’s all the stuff on this machine, and by now you’ve probably got your favorite Firefox extensions too. Drop me a line and tell me about them. I might include them the next time I write about the subject, and if I do… you get your name on Lockergnome. Wheee!

[tags]fasterfox,firefox extension,fx extension,gmail delete button,google toolbar,tab mix plus,bloglines toolkit[/tags]