five unique things you can do with Google and Firefox

Do you use Google inside Firefox ? If the answer is yes, you definitely need an add-on called Customize Google that makes your favorite Google even better and all the more useful.

And in case you require some more convincing, here are five unique things you can do with Google and Firefox once you have installed Customize Google:

1. Remove Specific Websites from Google Search Results

Don’t like to see pages in Google results that are from Amazon.com or from domains like .info or .biz. With Customize Google, you can easily filter any websites or domains from Google by specifying rules.

For instance, *amazon* will not show pages that have amazon in the URL while a rule like technorati.com/tag/* will block pages in search results that are from Technorati search. You can extend this idea to block RSS feeds in Google results.

Related: Extremely Useful Firefox Extensions

2. Keep Your Gmail Account Safe

Last year, Rob Graham demonstrated how he could hack Gmail accounts that were using http: instead of https: to access emails.

Anyone can forget typing that additional "s" in the URL so a better alternative is to outsource this job to Customize Google.

It will automatically switch you to a more secure https: login screen while you are logging into any Google service including Gmail, Google Docs, Google Reader, Google Calendar and your Google Web History.

3. Clean URLs in Google Search Results

Did you notice the URL for cricinfo.com website appearing in Google results ? Its cricinfo.com prepended with some tracking code.

I am not worried about Google tracking clicks on search results but the problem comes when you have to copy links from the search page - they are cryptic URLs and do not look good when put in email messages. Customize Google removes the click tracking so the search results link directly to the website.

4. Number your Search Results in Google

Customize Google can add a counter next to each of your search results in Google.

This feature comes handy if you are tracking the rankings of your web pages in Google over a period of time or if you have 100 search results on a page and want to know the exact position of the web page that you are interested in.

5. Search Flickr, CNN, Yahoo, etc from Google

Customize Google adds links to rival search engines in Google search results including Google Images and Google News. This is a big time saver and you won’t realize how useful it is unless you start using this feature.

So if you are looking for some pictures on Google Images, you will also see links to Yahoo! Image Search and Flickr - no need to type the query again.