GooglePreview is a Mozilla Firefox extension that, when installed, changes the Google search engine results pages (SERPs) so website thumbnails are included next to each listing. The thumbnails are from Amazon.com, Alexa.com, and Thumbshots.org.

If you are an avid fan of the Firefox web browser and use Google a lot, then this may be a welcome feature. You can actually see a snapshot of each site before you actually click on it, which ultimately speeds up your productivity. Not every search result includes a thumbnail because some sites aren’t listed in Alexa.com or DMOZ.org (ultimately from where Thumbshots.org decides which sites to include).

What I find neat is that if you search for a particular product using GooglePreview and the search result includes a page from Amazon.com, the product’s picture will be displayed next to the search result. Amazon books are also included, and a photo of the book cover is included next to the search result if you search for a phrase that includes an Amazon book product page from Amazon.com

According to the GooglePreview website (http://ackroyd.de/googlepreview), GooglePreview is “A Mozilla Firefox browser extension that inserts preview images (thumbnails) of web sites, Amazon products and stock charts into the Google and yahoo.com search results pages. Thumbnails are provided by thumbshots.org and alexa.com."

CNET Australia (http://www.cnet.com.au/software/internet/0,39029524,40003366,00.htm) recently called GooglePreview “an nteresting extension that allows you see thumbnail images of search results from Google and Yahoo. When a search is performed either from Firefox's built-in Googlebar or directly from the Web site, this extension retrieves thumbnails of all resulting Web sites from Thumbshots.org and Alexa.com and displays them to the left of each entry in the results. It also returns stock charts and preview images for items sold on Amazon.com.”

GooglePreview was written by Edward Ackroyd, and is available for download by visiting https://addons.update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=189.

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