Customize Google

After fiddling a bit with Flock I really liked the bookmarks integration but hated the rest of it so I figured I'll try find some plugins for Firefox that does something similar, it has to be said these is a major gap here for plugins in that area, sigh.

So while doing that I came across Customize Google, it's a fantastic little plugin that fixes up Google search results, some of its features:

  • Use Google Suggest (suggest words while you're typing) on all searches
  • Add links to competitors that lets you search on other search engines for the same term
  • Rewrite links to point straight to the images in Google Images
  • Removes image copying restrictions in Google Print
  • Secure Gmail, switch to https
  • Remove ads, including gmail
  • Anonymize your Google userid
  • Filter spammy websites from search results
  • Add links to WayBack Machine (webpage history)
  • Remove click tracking

These are all fantastic features though I think the spammy link filter deserves special attention. I previously wrote a frontend to Google using the Google API to filter out those annoying user review sites, this does the same just right there in the actual google interface. Supports regex and all that, fantastic.

Check it out. There is an animated gif demo on their front page, that should get you hooked immediately.

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