Accessing personal email at work is a potential minefield. Some companies will not tolerate it at all and others won’t want you using your work email address for discussing your holiday plans, personal thoughts or plans. For this reason, many of us have turned to using an online web-based email client to read and write personal email.

Problem is, you can’t keep this open on screen for too long, but you’ll want to receive notifications of when you have received new email.

Gmail Notifier is an add-on for Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 that enables you to check when you receive new email via your online Gmail account. It’s subtle and basic, but enables you to keep an eye on new email, without having to have your Gmail account open at all times – you can simply log in when you have new email and you have some spare time.