What do you do if you need to make a research online? You type Google.com! What do you do to read your mail? You log into Gmail! What do you do when you want to read some RSS feeds? You open Google Reader!

Everything we do, there’s always a way to do it with Google: whether you want to save bookmarks, create documents, organize pictures, create and read RSS feeds, look up paces on a map…and I could go on almost forever!

But does it not bother your to have your toolbar full of favorites pointing at any Google’s service you know, or even worse having to type the URL every time you need a specific service?

Google Shortcuts is a Firefox extension that displays all Google’s services in one single toolbar or, even better, in a small drop down menu next to the address bar, which can show only the places that you use more frequently, and that can behave as you wish.

Let me help you understand what I mean:

After installation, a set of Google icons will appear on the address bar’s left: at first, only some services will be shown, but you can easily set the ones you like this way: the last icon on the right, which is a cog gear, will bring you to the Settings Menu.

Services Selection

In the first tab you can check (and uncheck) the services you want to be displayed in the toolbar from a wide choice, 60 in the current version.

Display Options

The second tab lets you choose between the drop down or toolbar view, horizontal or vertical orientation of the icons, and also if you want the services to open in a new tab, and if this tab should should focus or remain unused until you select it.

Installation Page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3576