Thumbnails allow search engine users to spot parked domains (usually in the form of domains that once had content which is still indexed in the search engines) but also websites that look like potentially risky to visit. It is obviously not always possible to evaluate a website from merely looking at its screenshot but it can aid the searcher in that process. This, combined with the information displayed as text, can help the user make a better decision on which websites to visit.

Google Preview is a Firefox add-on that will add those preview images not only to Google Search but also to Yahoo Search. It can furthermore add a popularity bar to each website that is displaying the website’s Alexa rank. The add-on can place a quick on and off button in the Firefox status bar to manage the add-on without having to open the options in the add-on’s menu.

Google Preview will insert sponsored links into some search results. This behavior can be deactivated in the program’s options. The add-on is available at the official Mozilla Firefox website.