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Google Toolbar for Firefox Released

Posted by Zonk on from the new-toys dept.

fizz writes "Google has released their toolbar, available in 10 languages for the Firefox browser, and available for 3 operating systems (Windows, Mac and Linux). You can download it from the Google Toolbar homepage, and you can read the Google Blog for more information." Reported on recently here on Slashdot.

13 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. It works on Linux!! by utopicillusion · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It works on Linux, even on PPC ones. Finally, google released a product for Linux users.

    Does this mean that Google is going to migrate some more of their products from Google Labs http://labs.google.com/ on linux now?

  2. Foogle-Gox and the future: by Nomihn0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Will this tool bar replace the default Firefox Google homepage? Sponsorship is what it's all about, after all, no? Do you really think that Firefox developers will tolerate such redundancy? My bet is on the discontinuation of the homepage paired with a default Google Toolbar installation.

    1. Re:Foogle-Gox and the future: by enosys · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If we were talking about a non-free browser, the company making the browser could probably earn some money by including another company's toolbar. They could probably even earn money by setting a default home page. Is the Mozilla Foundation making money by making a Google page the default home page?

  3. Other toolbars? by Jaymaedae · · Score: 4, Interesting


    Does anyone have suggestions for other toolbars that are useful that work in Firefox? I am sure auto-complete is just scratching the surface. ( That's really all I use the google toolbar for anyway...in IE)

  4. Other (Google) Firefox Extensions by The+boojum · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Actually, I find the "other Firefox extensions" link almost more interesting. The Google Suggest extension looks pretty darn slick.

  5. any way to move it? by supersuckers · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have it installed in my firefox in gentoo... is there any way to move the darn thing? It takes up a lot of real estate, I'd like to get rid of most of the buttons and move it to where the google search that comes with firefox used to reside.

  6. Too late... by wviperw · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I was first thinking about converting to Firefox I remember that Google's toolbar was the "killer app" that initially kept me from switching over. Then I realized that I could do pretty much everything I could do using Google's IE-only toolbar using Firefox extensions and its built-in capabilities.

    For example, for instant Google searches, Firefox allows you to create Keyword Searches in which you can just type in, in my case, "g <search query>" in the URL bar. Or for Wikipedia it is "w <search query>". For word highlighting you can just use Firefox's search functionality. And finally, for AutoFill you can use the AutoFill extension (which ends up being better than Google's anyway IMO).

    So basically, Firefox has rendered the Google toolbar pretty useless to me.

    --
    Nothing disturbs me more than blind loyalism towards some unrealistic and over-idealistic notion of one's nationality.
  7. Gee, google, that's swell by RLiegh · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But I can use the Yahoo Toolbar on any platform that firefox runs on (any *BSD, solaris, etc). Because they had the smarts to write it in XUL (?) or what ever the native mozilla toolkit/extention language is.

  8. Re:"Toolbars" make me uncomfortable... by Mad+Merlin · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I know Google tracks and logs every search query by IP address...

    Not quite, Google sets a cookie on your computer that uniquely tracks you regardless of what IP you're browsing from. Not only that, but that cookie will probably outlast your hardware. The expiry on my Google cookie as reported by Konqueror, expires: 30/11/37 07:00 pm. You might want to invest in another layer of tinfoil there...

    --
    Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
  9. Far from as useful as on IE by Jugalator · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Google Search -- integrated
    AutoLink -- US use only; most stuff don't work outside US, and even then a limited usefulness
    WordTranslator -- limited use; only useful if you must understand e.g. a french site, and even if you do, there are non-toolbar extensions for this
    Pop-up blocker -- integrated
    AutoFill -- as far as I can see, Firefox' form saving system works well enough here
    SpellCheck -- useful!
    PageRank -- why should I have a use for it? diagnosing rank issues with my own sites? seems like highly limited use
    Highlight search terms -- integrated
    Word find -- integrated

    An entirely new toolbar for this? Hmm... I can get the spell checking elsewhere without one, and besides that, it seems a bit much.

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  10. Word macro viruses and alternate OSs.... by commodoresloat · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I used a Mac at the time and had numerous instances of identifying viruses in Word macros sent to me by windows users. The Mac version of Word didn't play macros automatically and warned that there was a suspicious one, and Disinfectant 3.7 could identify them. The reactions I would get from windows users is first a smug "Hah! You told me macs didn't have any virus problems" ... then after explaining that my Mac at best was functioning as a kind of typhoid mary for viruses that didn't have any impact on the system I'd hear, "oh, so it's nothing to worry about then"... a bit of convincing to get them to fire up an antivirus program that scans Word files for such macros and then "Holy shit! this thing is all over my system!" How little things change sometimes.... Of course I pulled that Disinfectant version number out of my ass but for some reason I suspect it is accurate.

    [by the way the Mac of the time, while far more secure than the windows of the time, certainly had its share of problems. The autostart worm was a particularly nasty one that I was lucky enough never to get bit by. ]

  11. Guess I'll just have to bite the bullet ... by jc42 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... and finally learn how to uninstall these damned things.

    I made the mistake of deciding to give it a try on my Mac Powerbook (10.3.9). Bad mistake. This was typed to the Camino browser, because now my FF is all but unusable.

    To use an example that /. users can appreciate, I fired up a FF window that has two tabs, with the expected slashdot.org and slashdot.org/users.pl in them. I then opened a third tab with the Google Toolbar discussion, and waited for its busy wheel to stop spinning ... and waited ... and waited ... until finally, after several minutes the spinning froze. Another minute, and it hadn't moved. I hit the little stop-sign icon, and after a while, FF sorta came back.

    So I tried opening a new FF window, using CMD-N as usual. Nothing. I tried it a few more times. Nada. No errors, no windows. I guessed that CMD-N was dead.

    So I started playing with a few other things in the /. window. CMD-click did open a couple more tabs, all of which hung in the "frozen busy" state. I tried a few ways of getting menus; none worked. Clicking on a tab would bring it to the front, but click-hold never produced a menu. Neither did click-hold inside a tab.

    WTF?

    Then, after maybe 10 minutes, a set of blank windows suddenly appeared. So CMD-N isn't dead; it just takes 10 minutes. Now, I'd gotten used to FF taking 30 seconds on OSX, unlike my (slower ;-) linux box where it takes between 2 and 3 seconds. But 10 minutes is way past what I'd call marginally usable.

    Then, a few minutes later I saw a whole lot of menus flashing above the FF window where I was viewing /., meaning that the menus aren't dead, either. They're just so slow as to be unusable.

    So it looks like I'll have to hunt down this Toolbar and excise it. Too bad I didn't get a chance to try it. Well, actually, I did. I typed in a search string and hit Return - and the window became a zombie. And my cpu was pegged at 100%, with Activity Monitor saying that Firefox was hung. I got my cpu back by hitting the little 'x' "close" icon for the window, and after a minute or so it went away, and cpu usage dropped.

    I wonder where I can find the docs on removing the little monster? I'd sure like my firefox back.

    --
    Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  12. Lovely first impression on OS X 10.4.1 by sjmacko29 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Firefox now crashes immediately on startup. Nice feature... back to Safari. Seriously, I think I will be uninstalling Firefox, and doing a reinstall. As soon as Firefox becomes visible, I get the "Thank you for installin Google Toolbar", and then the mozilla talkback pops up... Time to go back to watching the hurricane's progress in Safari. Steve on the Gulf Coast