Firefox Extension to Customize Google

Those of you who use Firefox might like to take a look at an “add-on,” as the extensions and plugins are now being called, that lets you customize your Google pages to some extent. CustomizeGoogle (what else would it be called?) boasts the following features:

Use Google Suggest (suggest words while you’re typing)

Add links to competitors

Rewrite links to point straight to the images in Google Images

Removes image copying restrictions in Google Book Search

Secure Gmail and Google Calendar, switch to https

Block Google Analytics cookies

Hide the Gmail spam counter

Make URL previews on sponsored links visible

Add favicons in the web search result

Remove ads

Anonymize your Google userid

Add a result counter in search result

Filter spammy websites from search results

Add links to WayBack Machine (webpage history)

Remove click tracking

Add links from Google to your bookmark manager

Use a fixed font for Gmail mail bodies

Stream Google search result pages

Not everything in this list would be useful to everyone, but you can pick and choose in the Preferences menu. I’ve turned off ads, added links to competitors, counted my results, added links to my bookmarks manager, and streamed my results. This last feature keeps the results coming (as in Googles AJAXified testbed, SearchMash: when I get close to the bottom of my (100) results the next batch comes pouring in without my having to click anywhere. One neat thing about this is that I then have as many results on a page as I wish and can search within that one page using my broswer search.