Google Toolbar 5 Brings Gmail Everywhere

The Gmail Blog recently posted about the great new features of the latest version of Google Toolbar. Aside from the Google search integration that we all know and love, Google Toolbar 5 also has the Gmail custom button so you can check your Gmail without having to actually pull up Gmail.

You see, the new Gmail button lets you get new message alerts, see previews of your mail, and even lets you use Google Toolbar’s search box to find any message no matter what page you’re on.

What’s more, Google Toolbar also has a “Send to” feature. Clicking on the “Send to” icon opens up a Gmail compose window that automatically includes a link to the page you’re currently on and any text you have highlighted on that page. This is perfect for emailing your friends pages you find interesting as you browse the web.

Other than the awesome Gmail integration into Google Toolbar, Google Gadgets for the Toolbar can also be used to bring your other Google services everywhere you go. In fact, you can even use Google Toolbar to integrate Google Calendar into your browser. The Google Calendar gadget puts a clickable calendar icon that’ll let you schedule the next few days and even add events.

The Google Toolbar site summarizes the newest version’s new features as such:

• Add gadgets to your Toolbar – to view your favorite content from any site.
• Access your Toolbar from any computer – by saving your settings online.
• Clip content as you browse the web – with Google Notebook, now integrated with Toolbar.
• Get suggestions instead of error pages – for broken links or mistyped web addresses

I’m not too hot about the error page replacements, mainly because I can surf my way out of trouble and I also find those pages useless. Give me a 404 error page anytime instead of “suggestions”. But I guess not everyone can surf their way out of an error page even if their lives depend on it, I guess.

Google Toolbar 5 is available for Internet Explorer and Firefox 2+, available for Windows XP/2000 SP3+, Mac OS X 10.2+, or Linux.