There are a lot of Firefox features that don’t get much press, or are quickly forgotten about.  For example, did you know that you could switch to using Gmail or Yahoo! Mail as your default mail client (to handle those mailto links)?

To chance your settings, go to Tools, Options and then click on the Applications tab.  From there, type “mail” into the text box to go to the default mail handler settings.  From the drop down box, you should get several choices, Yahoo! Mail and Gmail being two of them.  Choose the webmail application of your choice, hit the button labeled, “OK” and you are all set.

Now you are ready to use the webmail provider of your choice as your default e-mail application, as far as Firefox knows.

Are you a webmail addict? 

Maybe you share a browser between family members, and you both use different webmail clients?  No matter the reason you need to use it – one thing is for sure.  This plugin is one of the best to make sure you stay up to date with your latest e-mails.

You can also use multiple accounts in a same host. The Web Mail Notifier currently supports:

• mail.google.com(Gmail & Google Apps)
• mail.yahoo.com (yahoo.com, ymail.com, rocketmail.com, yahoo.co.jp)
• mail.live.com(hotmail.com, msn.com, live.com)
• www.daum.net(hanmail)
• www.naver.com
• www.nate.com(nate.com, empas.com)
• and more!

You can pick up the Web Mail Notifier add-on on the Mozilla Add-ons web site.  By far one of the best webmail tools for Firefox.

Over the weekend I started checking out the newest project out of the Mozilla Labs, Raindrop.  To some it might sound a little like Google Wave – however it offers much more, and is also much easier to wrap your mind around. 

Here is more about the program, in a nutshell, from the developers:

When a friend’s link from YouTube or flickr arrives, your messaging client should be able to show the video or photos near or as part of the message, rather than rudely kicking you over to a separate browser tab. Notifications from computers and mailing lists should be organized for you, not clutter your Inbox or require tedious manual filter setup. It should be easy to smoothly integrate new web services into your conversation viewer entirely using open web technologies.

I am all about the “making things easier to manage” so I eagerly anticipate learning more about what Mozilla has planned for this service.  If you want to learn more about the fundamentals of Raindrop, watch this video:

Raindrop UX Design and Demo from Mozilla Messaging on Vimeo.

What do you think?  Are you excited, or does it look like another web trend that is doomed to trip over itself?  Leave a comment and let me know how excited you are about Raindrop.

There are dozens of add-ons for Firefox that will generate any number of tiny URLs from any number of link shortening services.  With that said, I have one more to toss into the category, that may be a little more visually pleasing than some others I have shown you in the past.  The TinyURL Generator is a tiny extension in its own right that allows you to quickly.. well, generate a TinyURL to share.

It creates a TinyURL for the page you are currently viewing in the background.  The URL created is then copied to your clipboard, so that you can paste it anywhere you might need it instantly.  Here are a few more ways you can generate your sharable links:

• Simply click the icon. A TinyURL is created as defined in the options dialog (default is normal TinyURL)
• Right-Click the icon. This will give you the choice to create a normal TinyURL or one which is ‘Previewable’. The default type is shown in bold. This can be changed using the Optioins dialog.
• Right Click any link on a page and select ‘Create TinyURL’ to create a TinyURL for the link destination.

You too can pickup the TinyURL Generator add-on for Firefox on the Firefox Add-ons web site.  For more link shortener extensions be sure to check out our list of the best URL shorteners for Firefox.

Along with the unread message count, you also get a red Gmail icon when there is no unread messages:

…and a chat bubble when somebody is trying to chat with you via Gmail:

Here are a few more things new in this version 3 of Gmail FavIcon Alerts:

Now, you can keep tabs on the exact number of unread messages you have! With the power of the <canvas> tag, the unread message count is now dynamically created for your number of unread messages. The font scales well up to 999 unread messages, but higher numbers are still rendered for those with massive unread counts.

If you have Greasemonkey installed, to get this userscript – just head on over to Userscripts.org and hit “Install”.  Gmail FavIcon Alerts 3 is well worth using, if you spend a lot of time in your Gmail inbox.

If you do a lot of sharing of links, this add-on can come in really handy.  Here are some of the other features Send Tab URLs has to offer:

Send Tab URLs Features:

• Works with most e-mail applications (some limitations apply to Windows users; see Known Issues below for details). Gmail is also supported.
• Up to 30 browser tabs can be listed; there is no limit if sending the URL list to the clipboard
• Select the style of the URL list in the email: numbered, bulleted, or plain list
• Optional toolbar button available for the browser toolbar

You can check out more about the extension over at the official web site, and download it from the Firefox Add-ons site.

As far as customization goes, you can change the embed width.  The Google Calendar embed can also be expanded and collapsed as needed.  Also, You can choose which calendars are shown/hidden for each Gmail account.

The last thing worth mentioning is there is a “Quick Add” feature, not available for Google Apps accounts, that will allow you to quickly add events to your calendar.

Want to try it out?  You have two alternatives:

• Pick up the Greasemonkey Script for GmailAgenda
• Download the Firefox Add-on for GmailAgenda

So how does this rank against Gmail’s announcement of adding the calendar in as a gadget for Gmail?  Which do you like better?

Some of the features include:

• Color coded messages
• Search
• Can set to “download headers only”
• Delete messages from the server
• Address book

If you are used to using a heavy duty e-mail client, this might not be the addon for you.  If mail management isn’t that important to your day to day life and you just need an easy way of checking it, then Simple Mail is the client for you.

With this extension, you can easily with right click access create free disposable email addresses and paste them directly in forms. This helps to protect you from spam mails and could be useful when subscribing to forums or newsletters.

Previously one of my 10 ways to fix e-mail in Firefox, I don’t think this great extension has gotten the praise that it does deserve.

Personally I grow sick and tired of having to pass on my personal e-mail address to anybody who asks for it. You can think of this disposable e-mail address as your safegaurd from those who would bore or spam you till you can’t take no more in your ol’ inbox.

It isn’t often that I find one of these social “all in one” tools that I really like. They are usually lacking in a few areas or tossing so much stuff in my face, I don’t know how to even get started. One place that seems to have learned from the bad and the good to roll out an awesome service is ShareThis.com.

This service makes it super easy to get to sharing just about anything at just about all the biggest bookmarking and social link sharing web sites out there. With the Firefox extension you gain a button for your toolbar that when hit, will pop up a box letting you e-mail the link to others or post it to your diggs, stumble upons and deliciouses of the world.

Another neat feature I have yet to see anywhere else is the ability to scan your contacts at MySpace, Facebook, Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail, GMail, AIM and others so that when you send a link to a friend, you can pick exactly how it is sent to them an via which platform you’d like to send it.

If you don’t want to have to install the extension, you can also gain a lot of the same features by adding the bookmarklet to your links as well. All in all, I would say that ShareThis is a winner and one of the more impressive Firefox additions I have seen in a while.