Meebo Extension for Firefox
Posted on October 17, 2007
10 Comments
I briefly mentioned Meebo yesterday (as a site specific browser app) and here I am mentioning them again today. This time it’s because they released their (long awaited) Firefox extension.
Get a sidebar with all of your buddies visible while you’re browsing. Get visual notifications when your friends IM you. Drag and drop links and images from web pages right onto your friends!
When I first installed it, I spent 5 minutes wondering what the point would be to this. Sure, I have a bunch of contacts in a new sidebar but… now what? In the current incarnation, you still have to have meebo loaded up in a tab. As such, it didn’t seem to be all that useful. (However, they do mention there’s hope for a release where that may not be necessary… seems that would be nice.)
After that first five minutes, I had a few chats going and it began to grow on me. This thing is pretty slick!
If someone sends a message while the sidebar is closed or you’re on a different tab, there are a variety of notifications. First off, there’s a little meebo “status” indicator that will turn red and show the number of messages since you last visited your meebo tab. The red “1″ is the meebo indicator in this picture:
-vs- 
(the right one is the normal look)
If the sidebar is visible, you’ll see the message activity there as well:
Of course, you also can have a nice little “toaster” popup too:
Clicking any of those will take you to the meebo tab and that chat window. Pretty slick — No more fumbling through tabs looking for meebo because you might have heard that notification noise it makes. In fact, with visual notifications, I can finally disable that noise and know I won’t miss messages!
Visual notification - audio notification = Awesome
What could use work or clarification?
- Have to have Meebo loaded in a tab at all times. Yeah I know, that’s how it has always been. I’d just hoped to see the extension managing this aspect.
- I’m puzzled by how the contacts are listed and sorted in the sidebar. Most recent sender goes to the top, but what about the rest? Can’t sort ‘em and the groups aren’t shown.
- Not the end of the world, but it’d be nice if the sidebar would use the “skin” I’ve chosen in Meebo — or at least the background color.
- Speaking of the notification noise… why can’t we change it to something that doesn’t sound like it came from a 70’s submarine movie?
Those are really just quibbles though. If you’re a Firefox and Meebo user, you’ll want to give this a look.
Tags: extensions, firefox, im, meebo
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10 Responses to “Meebo Extension for Firefox”
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Didn’t like it at all
I agree with you that what’s the point if I have to keep the tab open ?
it would have been nice if they would have launched just the sidebar thing, it would have look real better!
I still can’t understand the need for meebo…I much rather use kopete (gaim-like program for kde) than a web-based messenger…mainly because I still don’t trust anybody to hold my logs, I guess.
… And I like knowing that regardless of what machine I’m on, I can easily and quickly get all my contacts and logs without the need to install and configure any software.
For instance: Ain’t no way in hell I’m going to install a bunch of IM junk on my production servers, but if I’m working on one and need to chat someone up, meebo works nicely.
My logs don’t contain anything scary or “risky”, so I’m willing to extend a bit of trust to the meebo folks to hold them for me in exchange for the large amount of convenience.
I can definitely see where not everyone would agree.
I’m a fan of your Meebo Desktop. I have not tried out WebRunner. But, this Firefox extension, I love it! And I don’t install many extensions.
It doesn’t even bother me that I have to have the tab open, because it made it possible for me to close Google Talk and Windows Live Messenger, saving me on memory usage! (I had to pull out 1GB of RAM, so this is very important to me!)
Since I always have Firefox open anyway, the extension is perfect. All it takes is patience to wait for them to release a newer version that won’t require the tab to be open.
Thanks for sharing!
Hey Alisha, glad you liked the article.
And yeah, my foray into WebRunner might’ve ended after just a day now that I’ve found this extension… It has me using Firefox again.
Sweet, anybody knows about a meebo widget for Windows Vista? at least for me should be awesome cause i don´t like to have firefox open all the time.
I haven’t seen a widget, but that would be an interesting next step…
It will be great, if there is some extension for Opera browser. Becouse it’s best internet browser!