Why Do Not Track (DNT) privacy feature in an email client? Tracking happens in a variety of ways, not just via tracking cookies, but can also through email messages, Mozilla says.

“Sometimes email messages you receive contain external images — images that need to be loaded from the web to display the entire content of the message. This includes pixel tags and clear gifs. When your mail client renders the message, it has to go fetch the images from the web using the same technologies as a web browser”

Email marketing agencies can make use of this technique to track which messages you read, which links in messages you click, so that they can provide more customized messages in the future.

Final thought: At present, DNT in Thunderbird can’t really do anything for you. As it is completely depends on each tracker’s goodwill, either the trackers start supporting the ability or wait for regulatory agencies to apply pressure, however, it is a great initiative from Mozilla [Via -Mozilla blog]

To save your Gmail attachments to your Google Drive, there is a handy extension for Chrome called “Gmail Attachments to Drive” that allows you to save all of your Gmail attachments directly to Google Drive from the attachment list with a newly added ‘Save To Drive’ link.

This extension helps you solve many problems, for example, you no longer need to open the attachments before saving it to Google Docs. In addition, this extension allows you to store any type of files in Google Drive.

Since Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, you can edit your existing file or create new documents, spreadsheets or presentations and work together with others in real time.

You can install Gmail Attachments to Drive chrome extension form Chrome Web Store.

By default, Thunderbird will support few IM protocols only and give access to some quite popular IM networks such Google Talk and Facebook Chat right from Thunderbird. IRC and Twitter are also included later.

The goal according to Mozilla is to bring additional value to Thunderbird users or in other words, to enrich the email experience with instant messaging functionality. You can read more about this news at here.

Meanwhile, Mozilla has updated Thunderbird to version 11 with revised user interface, new features and number of bug fixes to improve security, stability and usability. The new Thunderbird 11has a revised user interface (UI) with Tabs above the main menu bar.

Moreover, now you can search on Bing, Twitter, Wikipedia and others to find the answer you need right from Thunderbird. Just type the word in Thunderbird’s search box, or highlight words in your email to start your Web search.

Thunderbird 11 is built on the new Gecko 11 engine, the same rendering engine that Firefox uses to draw its user interface and render HTML content. Thunderbird is now more responsive and faster to start up and use.

Thunderbird 11 is available for download from the Mozilla website and the latest nightly can be downloaded from its ftp servers.

How to Open Email Link in Gmail Using Chrome

Starting today, when you go to Gmail in Chrome (open your Gmail in Chrome), a message will appear on top your Gmail page asking “Allow Gmail to open all email links”. Just click ‘Use Gmail’ option.

Now onwards clicking on email links in any application on your computer will open a fresh Gmail compose window. (Via)

You can also set other browsers to open in Gmail. Read it here more about it.

For example, the extension will convert ‘teh’ to ‘the’, ‘friend’ to ‘friend’, ‘ur’ to ‘you are’, etc and lets you add further entries to its list.

It can also automatically capitalize the first letter after a full stop. This option is disabled by default. Enable it from the extension option page.

From the extension options page, you can also create your own word substitution. For example, create different signatures where you type sig1 and the first line of the signature is automatically inserted.

Download ezAutoCorrect for Gmail from Chrome Web Store.

1. Sign in your Gmail account and click ‘Option’ button, then ‘Mail Settings’ option.

2. Scroll down to the star section. There you can see ‘In Use’ list and ‘Not in Use’ list.

3. Drag the icons you want to use from the ‘Not in use’ list to in ‘In Use’ list. It includes different color stars, question marks, exclamation marks, etc.

4. When you want to highlight a message, keep clicking a star in your Inbox to cycle through the other option.

Hope you will enjoy the tips.

Single-use code is a new security feature, which I think a brilliant idea from Microsoft to help users sign in their Hotmail account securely from public computer or unsecured public Wi-Fi hotspot.

Single-use code is a temporary password that can use only one time (but you can request one whenever you need it) for signing in your account instead of your original password.

To use this new feature, you need to register your mobile number with your Windows Live ID. Whenever you need a single-use code, just click the option ‘Get a single use code to sign in with’ (see screenshot above), and follow the procedure. Microsoft will send you the password as SMS to your mobile.

Graymail control is another great feature that helps users sort out urgent emails from other unimportant messages. Graymails, according to Microsoft are not as important messages, but are not spam mails such as newsletters, social updates and notifications. To deal with graymail, Microsoft has created a new, separate Newsletter category for Hotmail.

There is also a new one click unsubscribe button that you can use to unsubscribe from unnecessary newsletters. Just click on ‘unsubscribe’ option, Microsoft will do the rest. In case, if the sender ignored the request, subsequent emails from that sender will be put in the junk folder.

This feature is quite useful, if you feel inundated by newsletters and offers you once signed up, but now could less use or unimportant.