Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): The Auto Dial Firefox extension automatically places shortcuts to your most frequently visited web sites inside all of your new, empty tabs. Mozilla Labs recently suggested that empty tabs could be put to better use by offering no-cost options for the user (i.e., if what you want isn't what's offered, it doesn't hurt anything). Although not as inspired as the undeveloped concept at Mozilla Labs, Auto Dial fits perfectly with this idea. If you want more control over the content built in to new tabs, check out the previously mentioned Speed Dial extension. Auto Dial is free, works wherever Firefox does.

Firefox only: Mozilla Labs unveils the first iteration of a natural language web service connector called Ubiquity, a Firefox extension that adds a command panel to any web page. Ubiquity will look familiar to Quicksilver, Launchy or Enso users: you invoke Ubiquity using its key combination on any page and begin to enter your command in the suggest-as-you-type text field. Ubiquity's command set consists of "user-centric mashups" that let you perform tasks using various web services in one place using natural language. For example, you can look up a topic on Wikipedia in-page without switching tabs; you can insert a Google map into a new Gmail message (invoke Ubiquity and type "map [business name]"); you can send a web page to your friend John (hit the Ubiquity key combo and type "email to john"); you can select a paragraph of text in a foreign language and translate it in-page, or map a list of addresses from Craiglist by just selecting them. See these examples and more in practice in the introductory video.

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Windows/Mac/Linux: Firefox extension and Internet Explorer add-on LastPass is a secure password manager for all your web passwords. Like other web-focused password managers, LastPass puts all of your individual passwords behind one master password. When you type in that master password, LastPass can then automatically log you in to any web site you visit with saved login credentials. Even better, LastPass syncs passwords over the internet, so all your saved passwords on your work computer, for example, will always be synced up on your home computer. I haven't been using it for long, but so far LastPass works seamlessly with Firefox and exactly as expected.

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Mozilla Labs announces the winners of their official Extend Firefox 3 Contest, and they're an impressive crop of new and updated extensions for your favourite browser. I was honored to serve on the judging panel for this year's contest (alongside some huge names in the browser biz), and we rated the entries based on how easy they were to use, and how well they took advantage of new features in Firefox 3. Let's take a look at this year's best new and updated add-on grand prize winners.

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Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): Firefox extension Find In Tabs searches for text across all of your open Firefox tabs. It does so by adding a Find in Tabs button to the find bar that switches from the normal single-page search to a multi-tab search. When you search with Find In Tabs enabled, it provides as-you-type results with context and tab number. This one could come in handy if you're doing some heavy multi-tabbed research and you need to find something you had read but don't remember which page you saw it in, but what's coolest about Find In Tabs has little to do with the multi-tab search.

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Windows/Mac: Previously featured website snapshot saver Iterasi rolled out two great new features—namely, support for Firefox in OS X, and a new automatic scheduler. The scheduling tool lets you create an exact copy—CSS, JavaScript, and images included—of any site at regular intervals. So if you want to grab a copy of the Woot! deals page in the wee early hours, check a favourite online comic, or use it for work research, Iterasi is now a lot more convenient. The browser add-on is a free download for Windows (IE 7 and Firefox) and Mac OS X (Firefox).

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Just published an update to the Better Gmail 2 Firefox extension, which adds the excellent GmailAgenda user script (in the General options tab) and updates the Gmail Redesigned style. Download the latest version 0.6.1 here.

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All platforms with Firefox: If you like Delicious' ability to filter bookmarks by multiple tags (like "programming" and "tutorial"), you'll love the TagSifter extension for Firefox. Now that Firefox 3 supports bookmark tagging—and you've got keywords assigned to all your favourite URLs—TagSifter can help you navigate, search, and drill down to exactly the link you're looking for. Like Delicious, TagSifter adds related tag suggestions, and offers advanced search operators that can find exactly the bookmark you're looking for. For example, the expression:

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Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): The Send to Google Docs Firefox extension adds an entry to your right-click menu to send supported filetypes directly to Google Docs. The new entry is context sensitive, so it only appears when you right click supported filetypes, which include Word docs, PDFs, PowerPoint, Excel, and every Open Document format. You've been able to open Gmail attachments in Google Docs for quite a while now, but this extension bridges the gap and makes Google Docs that much more of a viable, web-based Microsoft Office replacement. Send to Google Docs is free, works wherever Firefox does.

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Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): If you like the concept of bookmark tags introduced in Firefox 3 but just can't seem to get into the habit of using them, Firefox extension Tagmarks adds tag images to your awesome bar for quick and easy bookmarking and tagging. Once installed, you'll see several new images next to the default star when you hover your mouse over the star. Click one to both tag and bookmark that page in one fell swoop. You can click on as many of these tags as you want, and when you view your bookmarks, you'll notice text tags have been automatically assigned. Tagmarks is free, works wherever Firefox does. Hopefully we'll see a more customisable version of Tagmarks in the future.