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The Boost Toolbar for Firefox is the Holy Grail of Facebook personalization. There are numerous tweaks that greatly improve the aesthetics and features of the social networking giant. Several of these features are highlighted in this guide.

Installation

First, you need to download the toolbar (assuming you already have Firefox).

After installing and restarting Firefox, you can click “login,” found on the far right side of the toolbar. Enter your email and password, decidhge if you want them to be remembered automatically, and you’re ready to go.

Toolbar Features

The majority of tweaks offered by Boost are located in the settings, but the toolbar itself offers plenty of quick and useful stuff. On the far left, you’ll see a button to display the Boost Sidebar. It will display all of your friends, their profile pictures, status, when they were last updated, and options to poke, message, and post on their walls.

Next to that, you will see a search box. It is just like the search found on Facebook. If you are using the sidebar, it will display matches there, otherwise you will see a drop-down display. Profile pictures and status are included, which is a huge plus. It is much quicker than the search on Facebook itself, but the search only includes your friends. (No other matches, groups, networks, events, etc.)

Next to the search, you will find the shortcuts menu. Here you can quickly jump to your profile, view all friends, inbox, photos, notifications, groups, notes, events, and posted items. You can also view the help page and the settings, which I will go over later.

Taking another step to the right, you will see an icon to jump to your homepage on Facebook. Pretty self-explanatory. Next to that is the notification area where you will see icons for recent pokes, event invitations, etc. Clicking on them will take you to the appropriate link on Facebook to take care of your blossoming social life.

Did you find a cool video on youtube that you need to instantly share with a buddy who is miles away? Click the share button on the toolbar, and you see a popup with the link already embedded. You have the option to send as a private message or post it to your profile for everyone to see.

Finally, you have an area where you can quickly update your status, if you’re one of those people who feels the urge to let the world know your every move.

Settings

In the Boost settings, you can mold Facebook to a pretty specific personalization. There are 5 tabs, plus another one for support info.

• General Features Tab

• Auto-Login

  Automatically logs you in on your first visit. You’ll stay logged in until you close Firefox.

• Rollover All Pics

  Enlarges all thumbnails when you roll over them. Very useful, but not recommended if you’ve got a slower internet connection.

• Rollover Profile Pics

  Only enlarges thumbnails of profile pictures.

• Open Toolbar Links In Tabs
  

  Utilization of tabbed browsing, doesn’t navigate away from your current page.

• Homepage Auto-Refresher:

  My favorite feature, refreshes your homepage (if it’s open) in the time interval of your choosing. It displays a countdown (by seconds) in the tab.

• Growl Settings:

  If you’re a mac user, you can be notified via Growl.

• Album Tab:

  Here you can change the settings for viewing the millions of photo albums on Facebook. You have three skinning options: New Boost Album, Old Boost Album, and Smooth Boost Album. They vary in speed and quality; it’s mostly a matter of personal preference and how quick your connection is.

Below, there are three checkboxes:

1. View any image in its original album context
2. Load all album images in one page
3. Album downloader. Right click on a link to any album, and it will download all images to your hard drive. It’s very useful, but they go to your default download directory without creating a folder.

• Pokes Tab

• One-Click Pokes

  Allows you to poke back friends without that annoying confirmation window.

• Poke-O-Matic

  Like the name implies, it automatically pokes back when your homepage is refreshed. Includes a poke counter as well.

• Notifications Tab

  Enable or disable numerous notification options: wall posts, messages, pokes, friend requests, etc.

• Display Tab

Use pre-loaded skins of your favorite college, pro teams, or other various stuff. Skins change the top toolbar on facebook as well as modify the colors.

You can also use generic color hex codes if you want to keep it simple. Unfortunately, this is a little buggy and doesn’t completely override the facebook blue.

Just below, you have the options to block Facebook applications from appearing on all profiles you visit and block the advertisements on the side.

Finally, you can configure the Boost Toolbar with Firefox’s toobar customizer, if you so desire.

There you have it: a plethora of options to make your Facebook experience much more enjoyable.