OtherInbox attempts to have as light a touch as possible when it comes to your Gmail account. Mainly, all you will see after it has done its initial pass through your mail is a new otherinbox label that you can use to archive or delete that mail. If you happen to have more than one incoming email address pointing to Gmail, OtherInbox will also automatically create labels for them as well.

Once in your OIB mailbox, the story is different. Here, all the mail that you agreed that OIB could import is listed by category (or what OIB calls mailboxes), which you can quickly step through and perform mass actions on, such as marking as read or deleting. The mailboxes can be created manually (there is a new mailbox button at the bottom of the page) or automatically, simply by sending email directly to your custom OtherInbox email domain directly. For example, if your OIB account name was johndoe, you could fill out an online form for some free stuff with the email address freestuff@johndoe.otherinbox.com. This would create the new mailbox freestuff in your OIB inbox containing any mail that is sent to you from that site. If a spammer gets ahold of that address, simply click on the block mailbox button and you will never see any email in that mailbox again.

We have been using OIB for a few days now, just trying to get a feel for the product as a whole. Some folks may only be interested in using the service primarily for its disposable email address ability, but we think that OIB is looking further and is trying to become the primary repository for all your other mail. You know -- the stuff you don't want but can't quite get rid of. To that end, OIB is also planning to support other online mail services such as Yahoo! Mail.

Finally we should mention that the free service, while offering everything that OtherInbox features without limitation, is restricted to only showing the last 30 days of email that has been introduced into your OIB account. If you stay on top of your OtherInbox mail, this should be no problem. However, if you do want to see everything, you can sign up for the premium service for $19.99 a year.

To integrate Facebook into Gmail, Xoopit's new plugin uses a Facebook Connect button that logs you into your Facebook account. Once activated, you can set your Facebook status at any time by clicking the "F" icon at the upper right corner of your Gmail where there's now a Facebook status update box that displays your profile picture and your current status.

However, the best part of this plugin is that when you email with people who are also on Facebook, those messages will now also include their Facebook profile photos and status messages.These appear in Gmail's right-hand sidebar. Underneath each person's name is a link to "Recent Mail" and "More Info."Clicking on "Recent Mail" takes you out of the message you're in to a Gmail search for that person's email address (or addresses). The "More Info" button, though, just expands the box in the sidebar to display the latest attachments sent to you by that person.

These interactions aren't just fun - they're useful. Finding past messages or attachments sent is a common email task, so having these quick links available is a great feature.

As before, Xoopit's plugin also still installs a toolbar which is added to the top of your Gmail inbox and a sidebar widget. With either tool, you can find photos, videos, or files in your inbox. The sidebar widget also has a link that launches various games, perfect for when you can't read any more email but you just can't leave the inbox, either.

Although in the past we've shared our concerns over any plugin that needs your Gmail credentials to operate, the functionality provided by Xoopit may sway you to put your security fears aside and give it a try.

Note: Xoopit is a Firefox plugin.