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Yahoo! Releases Firefox version of Toolbar
kidlinux writes "Yahoo started offering a beta version of its toolbar for the open source browser Firefox on Microsoft Windows on Wednesday, with versions for Linux and MacOS X following 'shortly.' I think it's safe to say most people use Google in their Firefox toolbar search field. Yahoo probably wants to get their foot in the door before it's too late. It would be interesting if this was a result of user demand. And apparently this follows Amazon's Firefox toolbar, which actually is a result of user demand."
Though Yahoo says the toolbar is for Firefox on Windwos, it works well on Firefox for Linux. Why won't Yahoo say the toolbar also works on Linux? We'd help them iron out the bugs if any. I have not found any problems so far on either platform.
You can download more search engines for the FF search field, but Yahoo is installed by default. For instance, I regularly switch from Google to Amazon and Wikipedia. I also have a German dictionary installed.
However, I think it's good that Yahoo is making a FF toolbar. It's just a sign of Firefox's acceptance in the market--that's a good thing.
The Yahoo! toolbar does more than search. I, for example, will probably use it for the mail notification (I've got yahoo and gmail acounts, and there's no "Yahoo! notifier." Moreover, I feel good about using it just to "reward" them for supporting Firefox.
[goes to download toolbar...]
...except that they only have a Windows version so far. Bah! : (
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I agree. What can this toolbar do that Firefox cannot already do or existing extensions cannot already do?
You're right, there really is no functionality that the Yahoo toolbar adds to Firefox that's not already there (or available as an extension). But that's not why this story is important.
Microsoft's IE has had such a stranglehold on the browser market since the demise, resurrection, and crapification of Netscape that other browsers were not even on people's radar. Companies with formidible online presences only coded for IE, since that would effectively reach something like 99% of their potential audience; the other 1% using a different browser, such as the intrepid folks on Slashdot, probably didn't even want the product the company was offering anyway.
Fortunately for the internet population, Microsoft's strategy of "ease of use is more important than security" backfired, and their browser was eventually poked full of holes, exploited, and overrun with online annoyances. The next time someone came along with a browser that was both easy to use and secure, the public embraced it. Again, as luck would have it, the first people on the scene were open-source advocates: people with a firm grasp of software architecture, security, and standards adherance.
This story is important because it is Firefox's first foray into the mainstream. We geeks have been championing Firefox for some time now, and the fact that companies with worthless products are integrating with FireFox is a Good Thing (tm). It means that we have a sizeable enough market share to warrant some coding time and money.
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Let's see, Firefox already does the first two, and the third is arguably useful.
Er... so how do I add RSS feeds to My Yahoo! with Firefox again? Oh wait, I can't.
My Yahoo! is a pretty powerful portal (you have probably never really tried it). I much prefer it to Google news.. it is highly customizeable, I can integrate RSS feeds from anywhere, I can add my own personal calender and to-do list that is synched with my desktop and PDA automatically, it has quick access to my photo album, my local TV listings, the local movie showtimes.. all on one page. It is incredibly useful.
Their Yahoo! toolbar will probably also have a few other things Firefox can't do out of the box, like new mail notification for Yahoo! mail, notifications for calendar events, and possible Yahoo! IM integration.
All that aside, I won't be installing it. But don't dismiss it as redundant so quickly, you haven't even seen it yet.
And for God's sake, don't compare it to Gator, the spawn of Satan.