Fluid has just been updated. It’s a clever new app that allows you to make your own site-specific browsers (including the power of Greasemonkey scripts in Cocoa).

Along with a raft of bugfixes, the new version (0.9.2) can now turn the browswers into menubar items for even greater flexibility.

Longtime Hawk Wings readers will remember the small flurry of site-specific web apps two years — Michael McCracken’s WebMail app for Gmail and Chip Cuccio’s GCal app for Google Calendar. With no bookmarks, other windows and other temptations, these apps allowed users to focus on their productivity without distractions.

Fluid works on the same principle. Based on Mozilla’s Prism app , it creates a site-specific app, complete with its own Dock icon, menubars and other individual settings.

Here are some that I made earlier for Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, mint and facebook:

Now, when I want to get the email done, I open the Gmail app, when I want to unwind I turn to the facebook one. I am never tempted to work when I should be relaxing, nor to relax when I should be at work. (That’s the theory; as every “Getting Things Done” fan knows deep in their heart, in the end no app can save you from yourself!).

The ability to run Greasemonkey scripts inside these Fluid apps is very cool. Previously only really available to Firefox users, Fluid now lets me load my two favourite scripts from userscripts.org so that I can use Gmail with killer keyboard macros and some of the noise taken out of the Gmail interface:

Fluid’s free-standing apps can each have their own preference settings. The overall behaviour of the window is also customizable — overlaid on the Dashboard, normal, floating or embedded in the Desktop. Here, for example, is my mint in Fluid’s simple black HUD style:

A Flickr group – Fluid Icons – offers lots of nice looking Dock icons for various web sites. I scored most of the icons in the screenshot above from there.

The possibilities seem enormous, and this article only scratches the surface of the app’s potential.

This updated version lets you turn a browser into a menubar utility, so that clicking on its menubar icon opens its window–instant, roll-your-own to-do lists in a Fluid-generated Remember the Milk or Stikkit app!

Fluid is freeware and available from the Fluid web site . productivity, GTD, Getting Things Done, webkit, fluid, gmail, google calendar, facebook, mint, google docs, web 2.0, web apps, greasemonkey

Tags: facebook, fluid, GMAIL, Google calendar, google docs, greasemonkey, mint, Productivity, web 2.0, web apps, WebKit

Gmail’s feature-rich web interface and the Web 2.0 hype are prompting more and more people to abandon desktop email clients.

Stowe Boyd at Corante dropped Mail.app for Gmail’s web-based interface and was glad to leave the “big fat app” behind in favour of Gmail’s leanness.

Jeremy Zawodny is using web-based email exclusively now. Despite some frustrations, he is “reasonable happy with Gmail”.

Jim at Jounreyman James found that leaving Apple Mail for Gmail simplified his life.

(UPDATE: You can add Cheesetoe to the list. And C.K. Sample III.)

Against this background, Jean-Francois Arseneault’s post about canning his Gmail account stood out. He is very happy about a return to Thunderbird, which he in turn says has simplified his email life.

Google has gone off the boil for him. His concerns, which he lists in his blog entry, are part technical and part privacy-related. “Knowing Google can see my communications is down right freaky”, Jean-Francois says.

Concerns about Gmail and privacy are nothing new. Gmail’s policy of never deleting anything raises interesting questions about privacy and data-ownership. Its revised privacy policy, released in October last year, was not reassuring.

Mike Bell recently posted his concerns about Google Analytics in the Mint Support Forum. He’s dropped the Google service as he believes that it violates his site’s privacy policy. “I’m not impressed, however, with the fact that Google has access to all of my user stats and they can cross reference those and correlate them and then target my users,” he writes.

Another new Gmail feature also raises privacy concerns. Suyog is worried about Gmail’s new “map feature”, which offers to map any address found in one of your emails. “For God’s sake”, he says, “I hope Google stops any more feature creeps like these!”apple mail, email, email clients, gmail, google, google analytics, mail.app, map feature, mint, privacy, thunderbird

Tags: Apple Mail, email, email clients, GMAIL, Google, google analytics, mail.app, map feature, mint, privacy, thunderbird