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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."
I'd much rather see them take the effort to redo the SBC Yahoo! browser that's shipped with their DSL. My mother for example, prefers it over just a regular service because of it's interface.
$
Everyone knows that Firefox is a great tool for the community (well, everybody who uses Firefox, anyway). What the Firefox people should try to in their marketing, though, is by showcasing how their openness can help corporations. If such toolbars could be easy as hell to make, a lot of companies with an online presence out there would be willing to give it a shot. Good for the company who has an easy way to search their products, good for firefox for being the middleman, good for the consumer who wants to search those products, and no harm to everybody else since you don't HAVE to install the toolbar...
Firefox already blocks pop-ups. And it takes only two mouse clicks to change from google search on the default configuration to a yahoo search. And it is worth noting to myself that I have *never* been tempted to do so. So I'm not going to download it. Probably rings true for most geeks out there, at least.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
It seems this is oriented (along with the Amazon toolbar) to the non-IT end-users flocking to Firefox that thing it's just another IE clone. At least the ones I support have no idea what the little bar at the top right does or that they can add engines. - Brad
When cleaning up customer's computers, the Yahoo toolbar is on my list of things to uninstall. I find that most times users have no idea how it got there. I replace it with the google toolbar.
It seems to me that the google toolbar is there to help the user find information whereas the yahoo toolbar is there to promote yahoo and it's many services.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Oh great, now half the reason that I use FireFox is gone. Yahoo! comes out with this great toolbar that sucks down my viewing area and my bandwidth. I'll bet that it's also pretty big, unlike the normal (unsponsored by any company) FireFox extensions...
Let's see, Firefox already does the first two, and the third is arguably useful. The "anti-spy" feature doesn't seem all that useful for Firefox, since it's not easy to accidentally install spyware via XPI. I think Gator has more useful features. Am I missing something?
Like previous posters have said it really adds no functionality to Firefox, but I guess it adds another endorsement to Firefox's already long list of supporters. If nothing else then all the diehard Yahoo fans will now be even more exposed to Firefox and may perhaps make the switch. But what I really wonder is, what's in it for Yahoo? Is this a last attempt to be revitalize their popularity?
Please do not let scientific accuracy interfere with the intended humourous/interesting/insightful value of this comment
In the past, the main reason I have avoided Yahoo is simply because of all the ads. They slowed down the search to a crawl, and I could barely find any content amongst the ads.
:)
The toolbar 'screenshot' convieniently cuts off the end of the bar... is this to hide ads and other crap? Or are we spared?
Either way, I think I'd prefer to just add Yahoo to FireFox's in-built search engine bar. Not that I would use it... since I have Google!
But seriously, Yahoo seems to be going in the right direction. The engine seems to have increased in speed lately. In fact, search results are as quick to load as on Google. What's more, the number of ads on the results page has decreased; just a few textual ads remain.
In fact... Yahoo is looking a lot like Google.
Now I wish Netcraft would write a version of their toolbar for FireFox.
I agree. What can this toolbar do that Firefox cannot already do or existing extensions cannot already do?
Web search? Check. Email? Check. RSS feeds? Check. Popup blocker? Check.
Oh wait, there's one thing Firefox doesn't have: Yahoo Personals, Shopping, Games, Music, and whatever crap is there that I don't want.
overall it seems pointless but at the same time it does add to the momentum of Firefox being a real contender. I would rather yahoo do something useful like fix Launch so it works with Firefox.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
I've been using the unofficial version (http://companion.mozdev.org/) for some time now, and it actually works almost exactly the same. The official Yahoo one seems to work just about perfectly as far as I can tell.
What would really like to see is the ability to have your Firefox bookmarks synchronize with your Yahoo bookmarks automatically, so that you could have them wherever you go.
Additionally, I wish it would highlight the search terms like the Google toolbar.
Great to see many companies endorsing Firefox and supporting it!
But if the toolbars are not opensourced, then I will not touch them. Sorry to sound like a troll.
The significance I think which is going unnoticed is that someone thinks it is worth it to support something other than Internet Explorer. Perhaps, this can spread?
I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person that I'm preaching to.
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.
I think it's safe to say most people use Google in their Firefox toolbar search field.
Geez, I didn't even realize Yahoo was in there... I just click it down for eBay or Dictionary.com when I don't use Google... I guess my mind kind of filtered out Yahoo... scary.
Click on the G on the search bar a choose Yahoo. Done.
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.
Call me when Yahoo Launch! works on firefox. Till then, I'm pretty much not interested in Yahoo.
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
I use it for the bookmarks, which are then common on any firefox or IE computer with the toolbar, but it also has shortcuts to useful Yahoo! tools like briefcase, calendar etc.
It really sucked when they had their jackbooted thugs kick down my door, hogtie me, and install their extension.
Even worse: for some reason I can't uninstall it!
Oh the humanity!
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Why are you moving your hand to the right?
Control-L, and Tab.
Unless you were referring to moving the mouse pointer to that segment of the window. Then I would be complaining about having to move my mouse to the left for the address bar!
Has it occurred to anyone that the only reason Yahoo! might release a search bar could be so that the lack one can't be used against them? I know this sounds stupid, but hearing a user say "I use Google instead of Yahoo! Search because Yahoo! doesn't have a toolbar" is a likely reason enough for Yahoo! to release an inferior search toolbar. Just so they can say they have one too.
It's a feature contest. Neither one wants to be the one with the less features.
Aero
Yahoo! -- Now with more stupid, poorly-written, inferior features!
Sidenote: I am a regular Yahoo! Mail user.
Please stop hurting America -- Jon Stewart
This isn't about providing a service to existing users, many of whom are, on average, probably a little more savvy than the average internet user. It's about getting new users who are used to using IE.
1. Firefox begins marketing efforts to showcase how easy it is to create toolbars for their browser.
2. Company that offers online shopping learns that it's a cinch to make a toolbar for their own company for Firefox. They figure, what the hell, and do it, and put a little link on their webpage saying that Firefox users can download this toolbar.
3. Person who knows little about Firefox goes to this company's website to do a little product browsing.
4. Person sees the link for the toolbar, thinks what the hell, and downloads Firefox to check it out, then downloads the toolbar.
5. User tells their friends how they like that Firefox has a toolbar for a company's website that they frequent.
6. Company now has a marketing method through people's browsers. Firefox now has a new user. And people who know about ctrl-l, or don't care about the above-mentioned company, don't have to bother getting the toolbar if they don't want it. Several winners, no real losers.
Who uses the Yahoo toolbar? I do, since its inception. I like the single-click to the My Yahoo page I've been tweaking since the late '90s but the biggest reason I use it is centralized access and maintenance of my bookmarks.
I use the Google toolbar, too. I almost immediately install both when I starting using a new system, though if real estate is scarce, I'll skip the Google toolbar. Having the Yahoo toolbar available on Firefox removes a big roadblock to using Firefox regularly.
This does add functionality to Firefox. Now all my bookmarks that I have stored with Yahoo! can follow me anywhere I sign in with the yahoo bar. I dual boot with win xp and debian. I use both IE and Firefox in XP and only Firefox in Debian so this will make it easier to keep my bookmarks up to date across the browsers.
The preceding message was based on actual events. Only the names, locations and events have been changed.
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.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
As others have already pointed out, you can use hotkeys to focus the location box (Ctrl-L) and search box (Ctrl-K). This also automatically selects the existing text in the box so you can just press "Delete" to clear it.
In Mozilla's location box, it's only setup for one search engine. In Firefox, you can setup multiple search engines for the search box and use "Ctrl-Up" and "Ctrl-Down" to select them.
However, personally I am more used to Custom Keywords. For example, when I search for "slashdot", I do: Ctrl-L, "g slashdot", then [Enter].
I have both the google and the yahoo toolbars. I use google for searches and yahoo for bookmarks, and the mail notification in yahoo toolbar is nice.
Where is that cool article-on-whatever-I-was-reading that I want to show a buddy or a user on their computer? That's right, I go to http://bookmarks.yahoo.com, log on and viola! there it is...
Because while Live Bookmarks are kinda neat, they are no replacement for a real aggregator. I don't want to have to open each entry in a seperate tab, I want to see all my unread content from a given source at once.
Wonderful. Look at what they did with the Linux version of Messenger, they released it with minimal features and have been extremely slow in updates or feature additions. Based on that performance I have a hard time believing that Yahoo is going to do anything wonderful with this toolbar on the Firefox/Linux version.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
What would your browser look like if you downloaded all the toolbars and enabled all of them?
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
"I think it's safe to say most people use Google in their Firefox toolbar search field."
No it's not. I actually hate it. Somebody obviously thought it would be a good idea, but couldn't think of a good place to put it. It's too small. It's stuck up there on the right when most people's focus (esp. left-to-right readers) starts at the top left. This is an even bigger issue on larger higher resolution screens. Let's be honest, it's just crap.
I install Mozdev.org's Googlebar. It works much better, although I tend to hide all the annoying icons.
The point is, by creating two text bars they have added unneeded complexity to the interface. More control does not have to mean more clutter. This is a major tenet of Apple design.
FYI, Apple's Safari browser does have a separate search box.
Peter Buergner, Dave Viner, Brian Kennelly and a host of others have created an excellent alternative for folks who like the functionality of the Yahoo! Toolbar but prefer Firefox/Mozilla. The current version (0.54) is a bit out of date - a new version should be hitting the servers soon. It is much further along than the official version, with full internationalization support (including Chinese), disposable address support for Yahoo! Mail, the ability to remove the Search Box (a function the official version has apparently removed from both the IE and FF versions) and a few others.
I've looked at the official source code and it's nicely written - probably a bit cleaner than ours, truth be told. We've had quite a bit of discussion on the mailing list about adding features not found on any of the official toolbars (including dynamically folding the Yahoo! bookmarks into the Mozilla/FF bookmarks, the ability to redirect menu selections into new tabs, and a bunch of other stuff). Recent "nightly" builds (more like weeklies, but hey...) have included about:config support for some optional functionality.
Most of us on the Companion team are happy to see official support for Firefox by Yahoo!. It shows that FF is really gaining traction, and will help a lot of Yahoo! users to migrate to the FF platform. Hopefully, most the of the newbs will use the official version (saving us some headaches on the mailing list), and when people want to step up to a more feature-rich version, they can upgrade to our version. One thing the team has been very concerned about is making sure that our version works on all Mozilla platforms, and in both Firefox and Mozilla Suite. Early word is that the official version works best on Firefox on WinXP - there seem to be minor problems using it with the Mozilla Suite, alternate themes and non-XP platforms (the code is all generic Javascript, so I expect those issues to be easily fixable). Our 0.54 build has some issues in Linux due to an improper set of permissions added to a directory it creates to store the Yahoo! feed. This has been fixed in the nightlies, or you can fix it by modifying the permissions of the yahootoolbar_saves directory in your Firefox profile (chmod 666 should do it).
Of course, our version could end up dying in the shade of the official version, but that's competition for you!
p.s. I know a lot of /.ers prefer the Google toolbar, but lots of us have already invested a lot of time in the Yahoo! version and don't feel like switching. Besides, Yahoo! as a portal (currently) has a lot of things Google just doesn't provide - I track my portfolio there, have a My Yahoo! portal page with a lot of localized content, like the quick links to my local sports teams, etc. And, at this point, you've at least got to give Yahoo! credit for being the first to officially support the FF platform (though I have a feeling Google is going to come on very strong, given the recent hiring of Ben Goodger.)
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.
I'd tell you, but my browser window isn't big enough to see your entire post.
Freedom: "I won't!"