Google recently announced that they were rolling out some upgrades to their popular Gmail service. I always enjoy seeing the “What’s New” link appear in my Google services as it usually means something exciting is being added. Some of the fun upgrades included:
- The Forward and Back button now work like they do on every other site in the world. Finally.
- Contacts have been re-designed to a 3-pane view that is much nicer for working with, especially on our Widescreen laptops.
- There are more options in the chat box. I don’t use it, but that’s nice for those who do.
- Conversations (Emails) are pre-loaded when you start Gmail. This means that there’s a longer delay when first going to Gmail, but almost no delay in loading messages once you’re in. This is great for people like me who open it in the morning and leave it open all day.
My one big complaint, however, is that the upgrade broke a number of extensions I use in Firefox, most notably GTDinbox, an adaptation of the Getting Things Done task management service by David Allen for Gmail. You don’t realize how customized your browsing experience has become until you lose those customizations. I’m hoping the GTDinbox people will put out an upgrade soon as it’s a real pain not having that working.