If you haven’t noticed Google has done some major updating and improving to their Gmail internet based free email service.  They have increased the standard storage capacity to over 5.3 GB which is huge and still free.  There is now a group chat feature which allows for multiple people to chat using only one window.

Improved Contacts Interface

While all these things are good, the best and most needed improvement was to their contacts section.  The GUI got a much needed facelift and is very user friendly.  Exporting and importing features have been beefed up and work well.  If you have an iPod and you like to keep your contacts from Microsoft Outlook XP and earlier on it, you now can do that without purchasing third-party software to create vCards of everything.  Google’s contacts will now export in the vCard format.

Better Gmail Plugin Plays Catch-Up - Gmail Contacts Disappear

There is only one glitch for Firefox users.  Aside from the fact that Firefox 2.0.0.10 is increasingly cumbersome, slow to load and crashes more than it ever did, the Firefox plugin “Better Gmail” causes the contacts section in Gmail to blank out and be inaccessible.  The developers of Better Gmail have released two updates in the last week to try and catch up with Gmail’s new interface; but, it looks like they still have some catching up to do.  In the mean time if you would like to enjoy the new Google contacts interface, you will need to disable the “Better Gmail” plugin.  Alternately, Google has provided a link at the top of the Gmail interface entitled, “Older Version” by which you may revert to the old interface in which the “Better Gmail” plugin will work well as it has historically.