Google Toolbar v.4

SpecialSauce writes "Google's gone and released v.4 Beta of their toolbar. Updates include: customizable buttons, smart search box, a bookmark feature that's tied to the users google.com account, and a send to SMS/Blogger/gmail button." Doesn't look like the mac version is updated yet, although the shared bookmarks thing creates unholy lust in my heart. Now if only it would allow you to search multiple search engines like Firefox's built in search.

Comments

mmmm, IMDB

[BlogPope]

I'd love to be able to search IMDB of Gracenote from google toolbar

Re:mmmm, IMDB

[arivanov]

"According to the local laws, regulations and policy, some search results are not shown."

As someone who has grown up in a country which was behind the Iron Curtain I can tell you that this is more effective in seeding discontent than showing the results. I am rolling on the floor laughing if this is the consession made by Google to the Chinese. The Party has scored an own goal. Several times. I am still laughing... This definitely made my day...

Do people actually log-in when searching Google?

[mrfett]

Given all the coverage of the myriad ways in which governments have begun collecting data on their citizen's internet use habits, does anyone actually use these features and log-in to Google.com? You couldn't pay me to use their value-added features. I'm surprised anyone cares about the bookmark feature, as I'm under the impression it only works when you're logged-in.

It's bad enough they can trace your quasi-anonymous browser. At least they have to work for your identity in that case. I'm not willing to make it any easier for big brother than it already is.

64-bit windows

[Jarlsberg]

Hmf. Doesn't seem to work well with the 64-bit version of IE. (Not that they claimed it would)

Installing works fine, but it's gone when I restart the browser, and there's no sign of it in the View->Toolbars menu. Bummer :(

Requested feature

[dada21]

I'd love to see Google start to aggregate comparisons of articles. I believe they have this power and it would be very nice to see it implemented.

My most basic description (of a very difficult process, I'd gather), is to have the Toolbar offer an "Originality" rating. If the article is not like any other article, it is rated 100%. If the article is available elsewhere, it is 0%. You should be able to click the rating and be taken to a Google site that lists the similar articles in date format -- who posted first?

This might also work to aggregate comparisons of items, or reviews, or something of the sort.

customization issues

[szembek]

I just installed the toolbar and it went well, I for one like the send to Gmail feature. I have however noticed some issues which I hope they change before finalizing this release. The first is that it adds 8 items into the IE context menu with no way to customize which items are there. I personally don't have any desire to access any of these features from the context menu and I would prefer to clean them up out of my context menu. Similarly I would like to remove 'Blogger' and 'SMS' from the Send to drop-down menu because I will never use them.

(oh and I also used the Google toolbar spell check to correct 3 words in this post before submitting it!)

This is all well and dandy,

[edmicman]

but, well, I already use sites like delicous or an FTP bookmark synchronizer. I do have some bookmarks on my google/ig page, which I've used as my start page, but what does this toolbar really gain me? Where the heck is the google calendar so I REALLY organize my life around google? Seriously, that's the one thing that's lacking - gmail's got the email covered, the start page works as a suitable portal (for the most part), but I still am either tied to Outlook through work, or the crapulance that is Sunbird, or trying to integrate my own (webcalendar).