Developers can contribute to the project by uploading creations to the Developer Dashboard here. If you need ideas, a good place to start would be to look at the "Most Shared" in the Firefox Add-ons Gallery and think about how you can port some of those gems over for the Chrome experience.

We got to try the Ribbit and 6rounds extensions first-hand over the last few days and they have turned out to be pretty interesting.

The Ribbit conference call extension allows you to quickly set up a teleconference in Wave. Calls can be routed to any phone, and you can use the wave simply to provide context for the call or to keep notes. Because Google doesn't currently give developers direct access to contact information, you have to type in your own number, but otherwise the operation couldn't be any easier.

While Ribbit focuses on telephone, the team at 6rounds has built a video chat gadget. Currently, 6rounds supports only one-on-one chats, but even given this limitation, the app builds nicely on Google Wave's real-time emphasis and allows you to watch YouTube videos or play games with your friends.

We didn't get to test the Lonely Planet, AccuWeather and LabPixies extensions yet, but they all look pretty useful as well. When we talked to the Wave team earlier this week, they especially raved about LabPixies Sudoku game, which looks to be quite addictive.

A Few More Things to Do When You Get Your Wave Invite

• Invite your friends. You will be able to nominate up to 8 of your friends for a Wave account. Wave is a lot more fun when you have somebody to help you test it.
• When you start a new wave, click on the Google icon. From there, you can add links and search and embed YouTube videos and images.
• Try to add a map (just click the Google Maps pin). As you scroll, everybody else in the wave will see a live update of what you are doing.
• Need to vote on where to go for dinner tonight? Try the Yes/No/Maybe gadget.
• Try the 'playback' feature - it replays a wave step by step. This comes in really handy if you want to check who has made what revisions.
• Invite a robot to your wave. Just add elizarobot@appspot.comto your contacts, for example, and you will have a robot shrink to chat with while you're waiting for your friends to sign up.

And a Few More Things to Remember

• Wave works in most modern browsers (and even runs on Safari on the iPhone), but it works best in Google Chrome (IE users will be prompted to install Chrome Frame).
• To add a contact to a wave, just start a new wave and drag and drop the icon from the Contacts sidebar to the new wave.
• The blue lines that appear when you scroll through a list show you where your reply goes. Just click on the line and a reply will show up.
• Pressing 'Enter' will take you to the next line in your reply - you have to hit "Shift + Enter" to finalize your reply.
• Private replies are hidden in the pull-down menu at the right edge of the message that you are editing.
• Stuff will break - remember that this is a very early beta!

Feel free to post a comment if you have additional tips and tricks (or favorite robots and extensions) you would like to share.

In addition, Google has also added some new features for extension developers, including the ability to "load an extension and pack an extension" more conveniently.

A small ecosystem of Chrome extensions is already growing up around Chrome, even though only a small number of Chrome users are currently able to use them. Once Google enables these extensions for all users, they will be able to use a wide range of them. The absence of extensions has held back a lot of users who may want to use Chrome but rely on certain extensions. Now, however, it looks like it's only a matter of time before all Google Chrome users will be able to tap into this growing extension ecosystem.

Given how stable both the beta and developer channel versions of Chrome on Windows are at this point, we hope that Google will soon upgrade the stable version to the 3.x or 4.x series, as they offer a lot more functionality. The Mac and Linux versions are currently still somewhat unstable, but at least the Mac version has now become quite usable.

Zotero also announced a new online component to its plugin, which, in conjunction with the new synchronization features, automatically creates an online backup of your database on Zotero.org.

Zotero, which we highlighted as one of the top application for students last year, features an extensive set of tools for creating and managing bibliographies. While it started out as a very basic tool, its feature set is now up to par with that of other commercial bibliography tools like EndNote or RefWorks.

Zotero integrates tightly with Firefox 3 and allows you to quickly save articles and easily create bibliographies for your papers and articles from most of the major free and for-pay research databases and online newspapers.

The synchronization feature works exactly as advertised and allows you to keep your bibliographies in sync, even if you work on different machines. If you have access to a WebDAV enabled server, Zotero can also sync your attachments automatically.

Needs Firefox 3

Whenever Zotero recognizes that you are surfing a supported site like Google Books, Amazon, YouTube, the New York Times, or JSTOR, it will simply add an icon to your Firefox address bar that allows you to save the bibliographic entry for that page or article with one click. Zotero will automatically extract the bibliographical information for you and it can even create a full-text archive of your saved documents.

Social Networking

Zotero.org now also includes a number of social networking features. You can, for example, search for other users by name, email, affiliation, or discipline. While this feature is still very new, and hence only has a few users so far, this could turn out to be a real boon for academic researchers (and others) who could use this to share their bibliographic databases with colleagues. In the future, Zotero plans to extend this with a Twitter-like stream of your friends' research activity.

Zotero also integrates with Microsoft Office and OpenOffice (though the 1.5b1 version is not compatible with these plugins yet!), and supports over 1,100 different styles, as well as the ability to create your own. You can also just drag and drop entries from Firefox to any other document and it will create a bibliographic entry for you on the fly.

Verdict

Zotero was already one of the best tools for managing large bibliographies. These updates make it even better and allow it to compete directly with its commercial brethren. The new synchronization feature allows you to work on different machines, without having to constantly save and update your database, something that used to give RefWorks (which is essentially an online tool) the upper hand.

Note: While the new sync feature worked great for us, Zotero rightly recommends that you back up your database before you update to version 1.5b1.

According to Mozilla's Justin Scott, 861 add-ons make up 95% of the total usage, while the other 5% are distributed among close to 5000 add-ons. 94% of the top add-ons are currently compatible with Firefox 3.0.

According to Mozilla's compatibility dashboard, as of today, only about 28% of the top 861 extensions are compatible with the latest builds of Firefox 3.1.

Getting to 95%

Currently, Mozilla's evangelism team is trying to reach out to all Firefox developers to make sure that everybody is ready by the time Firefox 3.1 is released. The release date for Firefox 3.1 is currently a moving target, but the second beta version should be available to the public by the end of this month, which might be followed by a third beta before the final version is released.

Some extensions, of course, are abandoned by their developers over time, so it might not be possible for Mozilla to get to the 95% mark for Firefox 3.1, but given the importance of Firefox and the extension ecosystem around it, it is good to see them reach out to developers proactively. For developers, getting ready for 3.1 should also be a priority, as Firefox users tend to update their browser very quickly after a new version is released.

For more information about the transition to Firefox 3.1 for extension developers, have a look at Mozilla's 'Add-on Compatability Center,' which will soon also feature additional tools for developers.

VideoSurf, which by itself is a very good video search engine, uses its proprietary algorithms to identify the most interesting moments in these videos and allows you to jump right to them by clicking on the images in the film strip.

The only problem with this script is that it won't take you to directly to YouTube or MetaCafe to see the video, but to VideoSurf itself. This makes sense, given that the script is a way to promote VideoSurf's search engine, but it would be nice if you could have a choice of destinations.

Overall, this is one of the coolest and more useful Greasemonkey scripts we have seen lately and definitely worth a try.

Here is how to install the script:

1. Install the Greasemonkey extension for FireFox (if you don't have it installed already) and restart your browser.
2. Click on this link to the script and then follow the instructions on screen.
3. You're done. Start searching!

Installing The Fennec Extension

Shortly after Finke created the mobile-ready version of URL Fixer, the addons.mozilla.org web site was updated to include support for the Fennec browser. When Fennec users visit the site, it will recognize that they're coming from the mobile browser and will offer direct installation via an "Add to Fennec" button.

After a required browser restart, users will see the new extension available from the Fennec Add-ons Manager, where it's also possible to access preferences and disable or enable add-ons.

Mobile Add-Ons Are Fennec's Killer Feature

The idea of being able to use add-ons in a mobile browser is definitely going to be a huge selling point for the Fennec browser when it goes to launch as it will be the first to support third-party extensions. It opens up a world of possibilities that take advantage of the new platform, too. Is it possible we'll see add-ons that allow you to interact with your phone's functions itself like "click-to-all" or "copy to my contacts"? That may depend on the mobile phone itself and how locked down it is. Still, we imagine that developers will soon be thinking of all sorts of unique add-ons that work best in a mobilized environment.

What sort of add-ons would you want to see in a mobile browser? Let us know in the comments.

Screenshots courtesy of Madhava Enros and Mark Finkle

Semantinet provided us with 400 invites for our readers. You can find more details about how to claim yours at the end of this post.

Depending on Silverlight might seem like a risky move at first, but a fresh install of Silverlight takes less than 10 seconds and Semantinet argues that it decided to use Siverlight instead of Flash because of its better privacy controls and in order to achieve its design goals.

How Does it Work?

Headup's mission is to connect you with your friends' activities across different social networks and to learn about your likes and dislikes so that it can make recommendations for you. Headup will add little icons to items it recognizes, which can be names, songs, videos, etc.

You activate headup by clicking on these icons. If a friend likes a particular song on Last.fm, for example, it will give you the option to play the song in the headup window, see when the band will play in your town, and what your friends thought about the song. If headup recognizes a person, the pop-up will also give you information about their latest Twitter updates, or Last.fm plays.

After the install, headup already works without having you having to set anything up, but once you import your contacts, it will go out and look at your personal connections from Twitter, FriendFeed, or Gmail.

Headup can also make use of Yahoo's Fire Eagle geolocation service to provide you with relevant local information. Headup will also make a limited set of recommendations, though this is not the focus of the product. After it recognizes your tastes, for example, it can recommend YouTube videos you might like.

Headup smartly stays out of the way when you don't want to use it. Overall, headup is a very useful little tool and it will only get more powerful as Semantinet connect it to more services.

Invites

If you want to try headup yourself, head over to the beta sign-up page and use 'RWWCODE' as your invite code. Once you tried it out, feel free to let us know your thoughts about it in the comments.

SemantiNet Introducing: headup from SemantiNet Ltd on Vimeo

According to Evan's email:

Extensions.flock.com has had a bumpy history. There's a fundamental issue here: there are very few Flock-specific extensions, and a great many Firefox extensions that are already hosted on addons.mozilla.org. The architecture behind extensions.flock.com is not mature, and we have historically been unable to devote valuable developer resources to this.  It's unrealistic (and doesn't make a lot of sense) to try to create our own system on the level of addons.mozilla.org until we have more Flock-specific extensions. Our admiration for the work Mozilla has done extends to addons.mozilla.org...AMO really is the best experience for getting extensions. With that in mind, we have cut the fat that is our unwieldy extensions system.

Sorry Developers, We Took Down Your Flock Extensions

The email goes on to inform the developers that the company had removed all the extensions from the site that are not Flock-specific - that is, any extensions that take advantage of some unique feature within the Flock browser itself. In addition, the Drupal back-end from extensions.flock.com has been removed which means no more comments or ratings on posts and no more automatic submission system. Any developer wanting to submit an extension going forward will need to email extension-submission@flock.com instead.

For visitors to the Flock web site, the new extensions page will point them directly to addons.mozilla.org.

According to Flock, the changes will allow the company to move forward focusing only on Flock-specific extensions, and finally, themes. As we noted earlier, customization is an important aspect to the browser experience. Something as simple as being able to skin Flock could make the transition easier for those making the switch.

Flock's Real Message: We're Just A Version Of Firefox

We think Flock's decision to separate their extensions from Firefox's extensions is a good one. Although their email promoted the idea that this just freed up time for Flock to focus on other aspects of their project, that's probably not the whole story here.

Flock wants to appeal to the social media crowd, a group that typically includes a large number of Firefox users. But in the past, Flock had set themselves too far apart from the Firefox community and gave off the impression they were really an alternative browser. Now that Flock has upgraded to the Firefox 3 codebase and lets you use nearly all the Firefox extensions, the message they're sending is that they aren't that different after all, they're just a version of Firefox 3 with nifty social features. In other words, you get the best of both worlds: Firefox 3 and social media integration.

Will this change in direction work and help Flock pick up some steam? It's possible. If you can move to a new browser which works like your old one and take all your extensions with you, the experience is much less painful. Now all they need is some sort of extension import wizard and we'll be all set.

The idea behind ChunkIt is that this will help you get to relevant search results faster, as you get to see your search terms within their context and not just in a short excerpt on a search engine.

Search Results in Context

In our tests, ChunkIt usually turned out to be the most useful when using a search engine. Having ChunkIt display all the instances of a keyword in their context does indeed safe you from having to click through to all the top search results. Often, if you are just looking for a specific fact, the 'chunks' in the sidebar will already give you all the information you need without having to visit any other site.

Being able to search through the links from a given page is also quite useful. You could, for example, go to a newspaper homepage or a Wikipedia article and find all the links from this page that contain a certain keyword. This feature is also very useful when search academic databases. Of course, ChunkIt would be even more useful for a lot of academic and business users if it could also search PDF files, though that would probably slow the extension to a crawl.

We did notice, however, that ChunkIt often ran into trouble with sites that featured a very large number of links and often just refused to work on these pages.

If you are doing a lot of research on the web, ChunkIt is definitely an extension that's worth trying.

If you want to see ChunkIt in action without installing the extension, here is a short video introducing the service:

Adam Pash over at Lifehacker unearthed this extension for a post about three as-yet unapproved ("experimental") Firefox plug-ins. We didn't find the other two Pash highlighted especially inspiring, but UrlbarExt rocks. Here's what it does.

• Copy the URL you're on to the clip board. A whole lot faster than click, drag to highlight, right click, select "copy link to clipboard." A lot faster.
• Create an instant TinyURL link in the address bar. Super fast and smooth. We do wish this button used our favorite URL shortening service, the semantic-web lovin' Bit.ly. We also wish we didn't have to click on the copy link to keyboard button after creating the TinyURL - what else are we going to do with that shortcut if not paste it somewhere?
• Perform a Google site: search inside the domain you're on. Awesome, we do this all day long and this is a big time saver.
• Go up one level in a page's URL, or double click to go to the root URL. How often do you find a page on a site through search or a link and want to visit the home page? You can usually click on the logo or a home link, but why mess around looking when you can just double click? We're not sure how much we'll use this one, but we'll see.
• Add a tag. Ads tags to the local bookmarking in your browser. Seems kinda silly.
• Anonymous surfing. Reloads a page you're on and subsequent pages, through a proxy server. Pretty cool idea. We'd like to know more details about which service this is using before we trust it too much.

We're not able to access any settings options for this browser extension but the plug-in page indicates that future iterations will include more user control. It's a simple tool, but simple is good and this will make many of the things we do every day on the web faster and easier - meaning that we can focus on something else.

You'll have to create a Mozilla account in order to access UrlbarExt, because it's still in the "experimental" section of the plug-in site - but we think it's well worth it to do so.

The extension lives on the right side of the browser window and can be expanded and closed at any time. Comments can be kept private, or shared with individuals and groups, as well as with the whole ReframeIt community. Once you share a comment, other users can rate it, bookmark it, or share it with other users. On pages with many comments, you can also filter annotations by ratings, number of replies, and shares.

Lots of Social Features

ReframeIt also provides its users with extensive social features on its web site. As has become standard for social sites, you can also 'follow' other users and be notified when they leave comments.

ReframeIt's community is mostly organized around groups. Currently, most of the active groups on the service are clustered around political topics, but the company also envisions school or college classes to use the tool for reading and annotating texts online.

Competition

ReframeIt's closest competitor is clearly Diigo, which has a more extensive feature set and also puts more emphasis on social bookmarking and discovery.

If you are mostly interested in sharing annotations, Reframe It is a perfectly good and easy to use solution, especially if you just want to share those annotations with a relatively small group of friends, colleagues, or classmates. If you need more advanced features, however, Diigo represents a better solution, especially if you consider that ReframeIt only represents a sub-set of Diigo's functionality.

Our main complaint with the service is that the browser extension does not allow you to access your social network and past comments without having to go to ReframeIt's web site.

Overall, however, we were impressed with the user interface design and functionality of both ReframeIt's site and browser extension.

For a quick look at how ReframeIt's interface works, here is the company's introduction video:

Parental Controls

The parental controls in Glubble function on two levels. First, parents have the ability to unlock certain sites for their children. Glubble already includes a large selection of pre-screened sites, but parents can also add other sites individually. If a child tries to access a locked site, it can request access through a simple form and the parent is immediately notified and can then approve or deny the request.

Glubble monitors your children's Google searches and filters out any inappropriate content. Glubble also keeps a record of all the sites your children visit.

When a child uses Glubble, it is presented with a full-screen Firefox skin that blocks access to the rest of the desktop. From there, children can browse the web, post to the family wall, or chat with family members.

New Features: Message Wall, Calendar, Photo Album

One of the most interesting new features in this version is the 'family wall,' which is similar to the message wall in Facebook. Families can also use a shared event calendar to keep their schedules organized.

The new Glubble for Families also includes a shared photo album. Photos are uploaded through a simple web interface. These albums will not replace a full-featured online photo gallery, but they give you the option to easily share one or two pictures with your family. Whenever you upload a new photo, a new message is posted on the family wall and all your family members are notified.

Verdict

Glubble is a great way for parents to keep their children's online activities under control. We really enjoyed using the new features and we especially liked the fact that every family now gets an internet accessible homepage, which allows family members to stay in contact while keeping children safely away from some of the darker sides of the Internet.

If you used Glubble before, you will notice that the layout and theme has changed dramatically. Personally, we prefer the simpler and more colorful theme of the Glubble Family Edition, but given the wealth of new features, a new theme was probably necessary to accommodate all the new functions.

Yoono is a Firefox extension that sits in your browser's sidebar and provides access to a ton of widgets that help keep you connected to your friends. The available widgets range from your favorite social networks such as Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, and Flickr, to providing related web page recommendations.However the things that Yoono is able to do are endless. Essentially Yoono is a tool that can do a lot more than it seems at first glance.

How Mainstream and Early Adopters Can Use Yoono

For mainstream users, Yoono is the perfect tool for casual surfing habits. With Yoono in your sidebar you can easily access all of your contacts from popular social networks, instant messaging platforms and receive instant update notifications of what's going on. You can keep up with your Facebook friend's updates (sorry Myspace users). If you're on Flickr, you can view the latest pics from the photostreams of your friends. For those that don't wish to leave their current page just to see one of your friend's latest pics, Yoono provides a fast loading overlay of any picture you hover your mouse over. You can also add comments to Flickr photos and upload your own images right from Yoono. For Twitter users, Yoono pushes the latest replies, direct messages, and updates from your twitter friends with the ability to reply and send updates right back. There are also widgets for Google Reader, Digg, and Youtube.

Early adopters can also find Yoono useful. Of course, the reasons stated above for mainstream users will also apply to early adopters. As an early adopter I've found more unique ways to Yoono. Normally I would overload Google Reader with a bunch of feeds that I'd like to keep track of. Flickr photostreams are a prime example of this for me. Now, I use Yoono instead to keep track of such feeds. Their web notes feature is great for annotating pages and sharing them with friends and contacts. The Discoveries widget is also valuable for finding related sites and services. We don't recommend Yoono for heavy social media usage. However, Yoono can provide assistance in lightening the load of other tools that you might use. It's just that flexible.

Room for Growth

This extension does what it says it does; it compliments your current tools instead of replacing them. There's still plenty of room for Yoono to grow. Some of these widgets are not the real deal. The Gmail, Google Reader, and Digg widgets are more like mobile versions of their web service counterparts. Also, the extension has had numerous problems with several Firefox themes. So if you happen to run into a bug or two, turn off your theme to see if that helps. Installing a bunch of widgets at once could result in a serious overload and make Yoono seem very unappealing. Essentially, keep the amount of widgets you add low.

Learn How to Use Yoono in less than 6 Minutes

We think anyone could find Yoono to be a valuable social media tool that's easy to use. The extension provides numerous offerings and flexible options to users. Signing into social networks is a breeze and updates are instant. Here's a clip on how to use Yoono is less than 6 minutes:

What Else is Missing?

One other feature we really miss from Chrome is RSS feed autodiscovery. Both Firefox and Internet Explorer have had this feature for quite a while now. As Google Reader is one of the most popular web-based RSS readers,integrating it tighter into the browser would only help Google in the long run.

Also, as Corvida points out, Google could integrate a lot of its other services closer into the browser. Why, for example, doesn't a search for an address bring up Google Maps immediately?

What Do You Miss?

Are there any features you really miss in Google Chrome that stop you from switching? Let us know in the comments.