Extensions have now gone public with the newly released Safari 5.0.1. Here’s a list of seven extensions you should install right away. Also, be sure to read our previous list of 25 extensions worth checking out.

AdBlock

Firefox users should recognize this popular extension. This one’s an offshoot of AdBlock for Chrome, which itself is an offshoot of AdBlock Plus, the original Firefox extension. AdBlock does what its name implies: block ads. I installed it just to block that obnoxiously huge banner ad on YouTube’s homepage. If you’re not the type to ever click on ads anyway, then why not cut down on the visual (and sometimes audible) clutter?

Type-To-Navigate

Type-To-Navigate is a mouse-hater’s dream. It lets you navigate links by simply typing the name of the link. So say I wanted to view the About page of a blog, I’d just type “about” and Type-To-Navigate will highlight the link and display an attractive popup of what I’d written (“about”). The only places where this extension doesn’t work are in text fields and when the link is attached to an image. However, it should find any text link with no problems. Another neat thing you can do with it is to press certain shortcuts while the link you’re searching for is highlighted. You can type ⌘G to find next, ⌘C to copy the URL, and ⌘I to send it to Instapaper.

Invisible Status Bar

Another neat extension from the developer of Type-To-Navigate, Invisible Status Bar gives you a Google Chrome-like status bar that pops up when hovering over links, and even tells you how big a file is when you’re hovering over a download link.

MouseGestures

This feature was originally pioneered by Opera back in 2001, and it’s kind of amazing that it’s taken this long to get it into Safari (at least officially). If you’re unaware, mouse gestures are where you hold down a button on the mouse (normally the right or middle button) and move the mouse to perform a gesture. Gestures can do things like go back a page, or reload. MouseGestures only offers four gestures right now: up, down, left, and right. Assignable actions run the gamut from going back a page to closing the active tab. Unfortunately, there are no customizable gestures like in Opera yet.

WOT (Web Of Trust)

Another popular Firefox extension, WOT offers better security when searching the web by ranking pages based on their content, with other WOT users providing the rankings. The green WOT symbol means the site is safe, and the red means it’s unsafe, with several degrees of safety in between. The only annoying thing about it is that it pops up a little indicator in the top left of the window whenever you visit a new site, but fortunately, it doesn’t popup when you visit a site you’ve already visited.

Gmail Counter

For those who don’t use anything other than Gmail’s web-based interface, this extension is rather useful. It adds a new toolbar icon that shows how many unread messages are in your inbox. Clicking on the icon also takes you to your inbox, so you can get rid of your Gmail bookmark, if you have one.

Reload Button

This one was made by the venerable, and über-critical, John Siracusa, to address his annoyance with the location of Safari’s reload button since version 4. It adds a reload button to the toolbar that’s freely movable, unlike the default reload button. There isn’t much else to say about it, unless you like Safari’s default reload button, in which case, what’s wrong with you?

You could install most of these from the Extensions Gallery, but I’ve elected to link directly to the developers websites, as Apple doesn’t have individual pages for extensions yet.

Have you been playing around with Safari extensions? What are your favorites so far?

Related GigaOM Pro Research (subscription required): What Does the Future Hold For Browsers?

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Apple today announced the release of Safari 5.0.1. What’s significant in this point release is that Apple has turned on support for the Extensions Gallery. When Safari 5 was released in June, it included support for extensions so that developers could start building them, but without access to the Extensions Gallery, users had no easy way to find and install those extensions.

The Safari Extensions Gallery is accessible from the Safari menu or via extensions.apple.com. Users can download and install extensions from the gallery with a single click, with no need for a browser restart. Extensions can be automatically updated and are managed within Safari.

Safari Extensions are built with HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript web standards. Every Safari Extension is signed with a digital certificate from Apple to prevent tampering and to verify that updates to the extension are from the original developer. Safari Extensions work in a sandbox, so they can’t access information on a user’s system or communicate with websites aside from those specified by the developer.

While the Safari Extension Gallery is launching with a range of extensions from the likes of Bing, the New York Times, Twitter and eBay, it’s nowhere near to matching the usefulness of Chrome’s, let alone Firefox’s gigantic range of useful extensions. Apple’s decision to include extension support in Safari is a smart one, but until developers start porting the most useful extensions to Safari, I’ll find it tough to switch from my favorite browsers.

You can download Safari 5.0.1 for both Mac and PC for free from Apple.

What Chrome or Firefox extensions would you like to see ported to Safari?

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): What Does the Future Hold For Browsers?

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Apple’s new Safari 5 brings support for browser extensions, which the company plans to showcase on its own gallery in a few months. In the meantime, we’ve compiled a list of some of our favorites.

To learn more about using Safari, check out our Safari 101 screencast on TechUniversity (subscription required).

Web & Utilities

AdBlock

The AdBlock extension is a great way to remove unwanted content from your browsing experience. Download the extension and load your web pages without as many intrusive ads. There’s even beta options to remove Google ads and YouTube ads.

BuiltWith Analysis

The BuiltWith Analysis extension provides an insider look into a website with one click. You can see what JavaScript libraries a site uses, who provides analytics as well as other nitty-gritty details that are totally public, but often obscured in tons of HTML source code.

Invisible Status Bar

Google’s Chrome browser does away with the status bar at the bottom of your window and only shows it when you hover over a link. The Invisible Status Bar extension does the same thing for Safari!

Live CSS Editing

The Live CSS Editing extension provides a quick way to load up a page and test modifications to the CSS in real time.

Bit.ly Shortener

The Safari Bit.ly Shortener extension makes it easy to shorten a URL with Bit.ly. Simply load the URL in your browser and then click the button!

PageSaver

The Svay.com PageSaver extension will, in one click, save the visible portion of a web page as an image and automatically download it into your Downloads folder.

ScribeFire

ScribeFire is an extension for using a centralized place for posting to all of your blogs, supporting a variety of typical blog features including formatting, categories and tags. ScribeFire’s Safari Extension brings support for this right into Safari.

Snapper

Similar to PageSaver, Snapper also saves the currently viewable portion of a website as a PNG and automatically downloads it for you.

Type to Navigate

The Type to Navigate extension is pretty darn cool. If you’re browsing a page and there’s a link you want to follow, just start typing any word that’s contained within it. It’ll highlight the link and then you just press Return to load it. If it’s not the right link, press Command + G to move to the next one.

E-Commerce

Amazon.com Search Bar

If you frequent Amazon.com, you’ll want the Amazon.com Search Bar extension. It’ll add a new Amazon.com bar to Safari giving you one-click access to your shopping cart, wish list, the latest deals and a quick way to search Amazon.com.

InvisibleHand

The InvisibleHand extension will subtly let you know when it finds a cheaper price to a product elsewhere on the Internet. The list of supported retailers is fairly decent for the U.S., UK and Germany, but more are being added frequently.

Social

FaceBlock

The FaceBlock extension blocks all of the annoying ads on Facebook. I always feel a little sadness for the advertisers that are paying for impressions that I never have to see. Oh well.

safari140

This gem of an extension allows you to post directly to Twitter from within Safari. Links are automatically shortened by is.gd.

Share with Facebook

The Share with Facebook extension gives you one-click access to share your current URL with your Facebook account.

Webbla

If you use Webbla for managing your bookmarks, take a look at the Webbla browser extension, which allows you to quickly add or modify them.

YouTube Full Screen

This extension is a great way to enable full-screen support of YouTube videos if you’re using YouTube’s HTML5 player instead of its Flash player.

Productivity

Background Tabs

The Background Tabs extension will allow you to open a new tab in the background by simply pressing the V key.

Gmail Checker

The Gmail Checker extension will give you an icon and badge in your Safari toolbar to show unread messages on your Gmail account. Keep an eye on their website for updates because the next version will support Google Apps users.

GoMBoX

The GoMBoX extension transforms your Google Images experience by showcasing results in a Lightbox overlay, allowing you to see larger versions without having to leave your search results page.

Instapaper

If you love Instapaper, check out Instafari, a simple one-click way to save an article to your Instapaper account.

InstaPaper Greystyled and Article Tools

The Greystyled and Article Tools extensions provide you with a cleaner style for your Instapaper.com account. Once the extension is installed, just visit instapaper.com to see the changes.

Google Reader – Simplified

If you’re a fan of Google Reader and the GreaseMonkey scripts that give it a simplified look, check out Lucidica, an extension that’s based off Helvetireader.

Safari Reload Button

If you’ve ever wanted to move the reload button for Safari out of the URL window and into its own button, the Safari Reload Button extension does just that.

Search Preview

With the Search Preview extension, you can preview the web pages that show up in your search results. This extension works with Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Toodlethings

If you use Toodledo for your task management, the Toodlethings extension re-styles the web interface with clean buttons and easier to read fonts.

For more great extensions, check out the Safari Extensions blog and keep an eye on Apple.com for its showcase that’s scheduled to premiere later this summer.

Have you written your own extension or found others? Share them in the comments below!

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Apple quietly released a major upgrade to Safari, bringing the browser up to version 5.0 for both Mac and Windows. Safari 5 brings several welcome improvements, including a new “Reader” mode, improved HTML 5 support, support for Bing as a default search engine and a new extensions architecture.

To learn more about using Safari, check out our Safari 101 screencast on TechUniversity (subscription required).

Safari 5 also boosts JavaScript performance with Apple’s Nitro engine, (formally known as squirrelfish). Stats on Apple’s site claim JavaScript performance gains up to 30 percent faster than Safari 4, 3 percent faster than Chrome (really Apple, 3 percent?), and twice as fast as Firefox.

Safari’s Reader feature has been available for a while to users of Instapaper and Arc/40′s Readability bookmarklets. Reader takes the text of the web page and presents it in a larger font, uncluttered by other parts of the page, allowing you to concentrate on reading the article. I’ve been a big fan of Readability, so I’m happy to see such a great feature added to Safari. Finding the Reader button took some time. It shows up next to the RSS button in the address bar, and only when Safari detects a page that has an article with a lot of text in it.

Apple has taken another swing at Google by adding support for Bing in Safari. This move shows just how much the tech industry landscape has changed, and how rapidly it continues to change. While Google remains the default search engine, adding Bing as an option means that Apple could flip the switch on which search engine is selected by default at any time.

Firefox users have been able to extend their browser with add-ons for years, and several users have cited the lack of extensibility of Safari as a major reason for choosing Firefox on the Mac. However, it took Google’s Chrome browser supporting extensions to push Apple to support the same thing in Safari. In typical Apple style, it seems that the extensions will be signed, and a certificate to sign the extension will only be available by joining the Safari Developer Program. The extensions will also run sandboxed, further protecting the browser.

Safari extensions are build using HTML 5, CSS3, and JavaScript. Safari 5 packages a tool called the Extension Builder to help with packaging and distributing the extension into the Extensions Gallery. Expect a bunch of long awaited favorites to show up in the gallery soon.

As of this writing, no extensions are available yet. Safari 5 ships with extensions disabled by default, but to enable them, enable the Develop menu in Safari preferences, then select “Enable Extensions.”

Auto-complete in the address bar has also been enhanced. In the short time I’ve been testing it, the suggestions are not only faster, but more relevant. This is because Safari is now searching not only the beginning of the URL, but the entire string for matching characters. So far, this is honestly my favorite new feature, and speeds up browsing significantly. Oh, and address bar progress indicator is back.

Another huge bonus for me is hardware acceleration in Windows. Since I work in an office and use an XP laptop during the day, this means that Safari 5 should be a big performance boost over 4.

If you weren’t sold before, are the additions enough to bring you back to Safari? What other thoughts do you have about the new changes? Let us know in the comments!

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