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Google Bundles Toolbar With Adobe Apps

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the jab-landing-close-to-home dept.

grammar fascist writes "Sci-Tech Today reports that Google is paying a 'significant amount' to bundle Google Toolbar with certain Adobe downloads. From the article: 'The initial venue for the Google mini-app will be downloads of the popular and free Shockwave multimedia player. The move is seen by some observers as an effort to outflank Microsoft, especially as Internet Explorer 7 nears its formal launch this summer [...] Interestingly, Google's search toolbar will be available only when Shockwave is downloaded for use with Internet Explorer on Windows.'"

2 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Google crazyness.. by uvajed_ekil · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Google Desktop seemed to be working fine as a search tool, until one day I started Internet Explorer. All of a sudden my firewall started warning me of outgoing connections from GoogleDesktopDisplay.exe, and ads started popping up from my taskbar. Even after closing IE, this continued, and after searching the preferences and terms of service for Google Desktop and finding nothing about this "feature", I have now banished this Google spyware from my system.

    I use Google for searches and for unimportant email, but I know the company is not my friend, as they would like me to believe. But I won't use other Google software that has to much access to my computer without necessarily telling me everything it is doing. And I won't run IE except in very rare circumstance when Firefox or Opera can't load a page I really ned to get to. I suspect Google will sell-out a lot of security or usability for ad revenue.

    --
    This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
  2. Is it by Konster · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is it time for an Open Source Search Engine?

    We already have a *pretty* good free OS in the form of Linux, we already have *pretty* good apps for it. Why settle for Google or MSN Search or Yahoo search or whatever? I should think that a massively distributed OS search engine should do pretty well.

    Forgive the semantics, focus on the idea.

    Use a bit torrent style method of sharing bandwidth. Say one lonely PC can store 100mb of data, 15mb of which can be shared on the internet per day to save end-user costs x the number of Linux installs, prolly not a bad use for distributed computing and bandwidth sharing if I have ever heard of one.

    Open Source Search Engine.

    The time is now. :)