Add functionality to Gmail with Gmail Labs

I only glimpsed over the Lifehacker article in the Brief Firefox add-on and only the mail from Dark Kosmos made me change my mind. Google has added a very interesting feature to Gmail called Labs which is accessible in the account options. Labs is basically a testing ground for Gmail add-ons that are not yet ready for prime time. You can be sure that most will work without difficulties though but Google does not want to take any chances.

If you enter the Labs category in the options you are presented with a list of 13 new features that can enhance Gmail in numerous ways. One adds pictures of your contacts in chat, one lists all links that can be bookmarked and another adds the option to view messages in a fixed width font.

Each new function can be enabled and disabled separately. A rescue link is provided in case a new function is breaking Gmail. Visiting Gmail with the url http://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0 will disable all functions that have been previously enabled in labs.

Not all of the 13 available functions are really necessary, take the Snakes game for example. I see those 13 as a good beginning and hope that we will see new - better - functions pretty soon.