June 21, 2009

Yahoo! Toolbar Gets an Update and Made Available for Firefox

Yahoo! this week released an update to their browser toolbar. Previously only available for Internet Explorer, the toolbar is now ready for the Firefox browser as well.

Additionally, here are the updates you can expect:

Faster search - utilizes technology from Inquisitor to provide search suggestions, recalls sites from search history, and searching sites like Flickr and Wikipedia directly from the toolbar search box.

Site Preview - works in the IE toolbar. For certain site apps that you can add to the toolbar, displays a preview of the site or info without having to load the site. For example, if you have the movie showtimes app selected for your toolbar, you can click the arrow next the clapboard icon and a preview box will drop down. Other apps that use the preview are Yahoo! Mail and eBay.

Image via Yahoo! Anecdotal blog

What do you think of the new Yahoo! toolbar? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 5, 2008

Yahoo Search Toolbar to be Bundled with InstallShield

Just days after Microsoft announced a Live Search toolbar distribution deal with HP, Yahoo has announced a toolbar distribution deal of its own. Acresso will bundle the toolbar with its installations of InstallShield. Yahoo says the distribution will reach 71,000 organizations. InstallShield has been deployed on over 500 million PCs worldwide.

"InstallShield is the de facto standard for authoring installs - from the top 100 software producers in the world to the individual developer. By simplifying the addition of Yahoo! Toolbar into their installs, software producers of any size can bring Yahoo!'s powerful search functionality to their end-users while opening up brand new revenue opportunities," said Mark Bishof, CEO, Acresso Software.

"Our goal is to offer users access to the most comprehensive and relevant content on the Web. With InstallShield being deployed on more than 500 million PCs worldwide, this partnership gives us the ability to extend our reach with Yahoo! Toolbar and become the starting point for InstallShield's global community," said Vish Makhijani, General Manager and Senior Vice President, Yahoo! Search.

So, who out-toolbared who? Microsoft or Yahoo? Let it fly in the comments...

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 25, 2006

New Toolbar and Bookmarks from Yahoo

Yahoo has applied a major facelift to its toolbar and bookmarking feature, creating a slick new visual interface and tightly integrating your own bookmarks into search. More on the new service in today's SearchDay article, Yahoo Updates Toolbar and Bookmarks.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 1:00 AM | Permalink

October 19, 2006

Searching Via Internet Explorer 7 & The Battle To Be The Default Search Engine

Now that Internet Explorer 7 has been released in final format, I wanted to look at how search is being handled within the browser. There's been lots of discussion and worries about this in the past. Speculation time is over; reality is here. In this article, how the IE7 search box works, how you can change it and how Google and Yahoo's toolbars behave within it to try and maintain their default status, once gained.

The biggest difference with Internet Explorer 7 is the one that's been most discussed, a visible search box built into the "chrome." In the picture below, you can see the search box, complete with the word "Google" in light text to remind me what search engine is my default.

(NOTE: I've used a lot of screenshots, drawing off my Flickr account and picked a day when Flickr has became sluggish after I wrote this. Apologies if the pictures don't show when you view the page. Try reloading or checking back).

Google is my default search engine because it was that way in Internet Explorer 6. It became my default there with my permission, when I installed the Google Toolbar on my laptop (where I did today's testing) ages ago.

I removed the Google Toolbar for the purposes of testing IE7. That didn't cause the IE6 default settings to change, and to Microsoft's credit, they didn't try to override it when I upgraded to IE7.

Microsoft had previously said that if it detected a particular search engine was set to be a default, it would respect that. So, IE7 did -- sort of. Notice however what comes up in the main window of Internet Explorer 7 when I relaunched it:

Here, I'm notified that Google's my default, and I'm asked to confirm this or make another choice. Overall, I think that's fine. Yes, it's Microsoft hoping to change some minds. Maybe "Keep my current default search provider" should be ticked already. But I'd say most people who have Google as their default now will confirm keeping it that way. It's hardly anti-competitive.

Google, in particular, has disagreed. On a new machine, where Google has no presence or partnership, Microsoft Live Search will be the default. Google had suggested that users should be explicitly asked to make a choice from one of several providers. In my past article about this, I wrote about not being sympathetic to that idea, given that Google has had no problem paying to override consumer choice to gain the default position through deals with Firefox or through Dell installations.

Since then, deals have only accelerated. Yahoo partnered with Acer and also with HP. Google cut a deal with Adobe. It's difficult to know how a consumer is going to buy a "virgin" machine where the defaults haven't already been decided or influenced by some business deal.

Given this, let's focus on how consumers can make their choices after the fact. That's pretty easy. From that opening screen that IE gives after installation, tick the "Let me select from a list of other search providers" option and then choose Save Settings at the bottom of the page.

That will brings up this page (other pages might come up for other language/country configurations):

Very fairly, Microsoft isn't positioning themselves at the top of the list or more prominently than others. In fact, I think Microsoft is making a terrible mistake by just saying "Live Search" rather than "Microsoft Live Search." I think relatively few people know the Live brand right now. I can well imagine some people thinking, "Live Search -- what's that?" and skipping the search engine from consideration.

I selected Live Search from the list. That made a pop-up box appear:

Notice the option to make the choice as my default is NOT ticked. This allows you to add several search engines to the search box, which you can then selectively use while still maintaining your default search engine. You can add a bunch of different providers, and I'll come back to this more below.

It's worth noting that the Search Provider page links to information about the OpenSearch system, a way for anyone to easily create search engines that can be added to IE7. Of course, that doesn't mean you get added to the all-important Search Provider page. It just means someone visiting your site might be able to use a button that you promote to them to change their IE7 settings.

That Search Provider page also has an interesting box allowing you to visit any search engine, then do a copy-and-paste action to make your own search box. It's very clever. You simply search for TEST on anything that gives you a search box. Copy-and-paste the resulting URL, and IE7 will automatically create the right way to access that search engine for you. I added Search Engine Watch as a search engine to my IE7 installation easily by doing this.

In the example above, I didn't change my default search provider. Now let's say I want to, perhaps some time after I've initially installed IE7. Google has previous spun the idea of changing settings in IE7 as some complicated task. It even cited research saying only one third of users could figure it out. I have more faith that people can do it, so let's go through the steps.

1. Click the Tools button in IE7's menu, then pick Internet Options  
2. On the General tab of the Internet Options window that appears, there's a Search area. Click on the Settings button here.  
3. That brings up a Change Search Defaults menu: (FYI, I wish the "Find more providers" link was much more visible here. If you didn't pick more providers from when IE was initially installed, you won't have any choices in the main selection area -- and you might miss that link. This is handled in a better way through an alternative method I'll cover below).  
4. Choose the search engine you want, push the Set Default button, then OK. Now you're done.

Well, not necessarily. After I did this, Google was shown as my choice within the search box in the chrome. Evil Google! No, it seems more an IE thing. When I closed and restarted IE7, the default was changed to Live Search.

Let's go back to that search box in the chrome. Obviously, you can use it to search. Enter some words, hit return or click the magnifying glass icon/button, and the browser will pull back results from your default search engine.

The box also allows you to temporarily or permanently change your default search provider. Next to the box, use the down-arrow to get a drop-down menu like this:

From it, any search engine you've added to your providers list is shown. You can see how several providers I've selected are added, including the custom choice I made for Search Engine Watch.

Choose a provider, and then your search will go to that provider for that particular search, similar to how the box in Firefox works. It stays this way until you change it back or until you close IE7 entirely.

Look at the bottom of the menu. The drop-down box lets you get to the IE7 search providers page or bring up the Change Search Defaults box I showed in step 3 above. That makes changing providers a two step process.

Next up, I wanted to see how the search engines competing with Microsoft were reacting to a freshly minted copy of IE7 showing up at their doorsteps. Would I get prompts to change, as we've seen in the past from both Google and Yahoo?

Google and Yahoo surprisingly did nothing. I wonder if this might because the final release of IE7 has made some type of browser agent change that the two have set to identify. We'll see. Meanwhile, Ask gave me this box enticing me to change:

Next up, time to deal with concerns that Google might be too aggressive in protecting itself once installed as the default via the Google Toolbar. I loaded up a fresh copy. In short order, Google asked me if I wanted to make it both my default search provider and notify me if something tries to change that:

To help avoid controversy, Google ought to make these separate options. But from a usability perspective, I can well understand the logic of making then a single choice. If I want Google to be my default, I probably don't want something to try and change that behind my back -- and many have had bad experiences with adware and spyware doing exactly that.

I told it Google fine, then I was surprised that the next screen made me decide whether to have PageRank display enabled or not.

In the past, I recall this as an option you were never prompted to enable. Instead, I recall it as something that search engine optimization folks (about the only ones who care) would enable by diving into the advanced options and switching it on.

I could be wrong in my recollection. If so, my apologies. But even with Google's clear "in your face" warning that enabling PageRank will send data to them, I still wonder if perhaps the screen should be different.

Maybe PageRank display should be disabled by default, rather than making you choose. The screen that appears would then ask explicitly if you wanted to change to enabled. It would explain what it provides to the user (the screen itself tells you nothing, not even a short description such as here). It would then warn, as it does now, that enabling the feature allows Google to see every page you are visiting.

All installed, Google gives me a big notice to let me know I'm ready to go with the toolbar:

I then tried to change search providers using the steps above. That seemed to work, but then I got this small notification in my task bar, along with an audible signal:

My task bar is at the top of the screen (where it belongs, in my opinion!). By default, the task bar is at the bottom of Windows machines by default, so the notification could be less noticeable there. The sound helps, but frankly I don't know why this was blocked at all.

There's a big difference between spyware changing your default setting and users themselves trying to change the default using the options within Internet Explorer. Google ought to be able to distinguish the two. Changes made by a user shouldn't be blocked. Moreover, any blocking ought to ask me for confirmation that it's going to happen, not just be done on my behalf.

In other words, consider this. I'd consented for Google to notify me if something was trying to change my default settings, as shown on that earlier screenshot. I did not consent to it doing the blocking on my behalf, which is what it did. It would have been far better if Google had produced some type of pop-up box telling me that something wanted to change my defaults and asking me if I wanted to allow this. Leave the choice with me.

I'll follow-up with Google about this. Meanwhile, what to do if you want to override the decision Google made for you? When that notification happens, you have to click on the little G button in your task bar (if the notification is gone, try changing again to make it come back). Clicking on the G brings up a box like this:

That box is what I think Google should actually show you, rather than processing it behind the scenes unless you manually make it appear. It tells you something wants to change your default, asks if you want to allow that to happen and lets you override what Google wants to do, remain the default, if that's your decision.

If you override, that should disable Google from doing any future monitoring, as it tells you will be the case:

That's what I found to happen. In fact, I see no signs that Google is still monitoring despite being told not to. That's what happened in July, when the GoogleToolbarNotifier.exe program continued to run. Google said this was a bug, which got some dubious laughs in some quarters. Bug or not, I certainly don't see it happening now.

To further test it, I went back to Ask.com and let it make it my default search provider. That worked fine.

Once you've disabled monitoring, what if you want it back? Use the Settings menu of the Google Toolbar, then on the More tab, you'll see two options:

The two different options intrigued me. What was the difference between:

• Set and keep Search settings to Google
  • Notify me on settings change

I enabled only the first. Bad, bad choice. If you do this, you simply cannot change your settings at all unless you go back into the Google Toolbar and override the option. Google will silently keep any settings from being altered. If you enable them both, then you get back to the behavior where at least Google will give you a notification.

Overall, here's what I'd like to see. The Google Toolbar should ask if you want to be notified about changes. If something tries to make a change, it should then ask you for explicit permission whether to override this, at least the first time -- perhaps it gives you an option to let Google handle these changes without notifications behind the scenes after that. But yes -- get in the users face more about what you're going to change initially, so they know what's going on.

Having played with Google, I next loaded up the Yahoo Toolbar. Ugh, not fun. First, Yahoo by default wants to cram Norton Spyware scan down your throat. Yes, right under the big Download Yahoo! Toolbar button in smaller text is an option to get just the toolbar without it. I'd rather see that option get equal play.

After the installation, like Google, Yahoo stands ready to be both my default search engine and help me get back to Yahoo if something changes my default settings:

Like Google, Yahoo makes it clear you've got the toolbar with this big pop-up window:

Decide to personalize the toolbar, as Yahoo suggests? To do that, you've got to have a Yahoo account. That means the toolbar does more than drive searches for Yahoo. Unlike Google, Yahoo's trying to generate user registrations, as well. The toolbar works without registration, of course -- but it no doubt encourages some people to sign up.

I manually changed my default provider from Yahoo to Google, using the steps above. Yahoo didn't block this. But when I closed the browser and relaunched it, I got this:

Fair enough. Unlike Google, Yahoo didn't silently switch itself back. It asked me to make that choice. It was also a one time thing. I told it to allow the change, then closed my browser and reopened it. Yahoo didn't come back and try to get me to switch back to Yahoo again.

Actually, I wouldn't have minded that. I find it very helpful that Firefox or Internet Explorer will keep asking me if I want them as a default unless I explicitly use the offered tick box not to be asked again. That's because it's easy to accidentally hit the wrong button. It's harder to both hit the wrong button and enable a tick box.

All this effort by the toolbars to maintain default status comes off the fear that the IE7 search box is going to somehow gain Microsoft tons of search traffic. I've been pessimistic about this actually happening. I've noted for ages that despite Microsoft long having hooks into IE for its own search, Google and Yahoo have both survived and thrived. My Google Worried About Microsoft's Browser Advantage? What Advantage? article goes into much more depth about this.

It's uncertain to me that the search box in the "chrome" is going to make that much of a difference, but I haven't seen much user behavior data here. I could be completely wrong, and Microsoft's competitors are certainly worried about it. We'll know in short order. IE7 is being rolled out in a mandatory fashion to Windows users beginning November 1 through the Windows update system. If Microsoft's search share rises, the chrome search box may be working.

However, I think many people will still fire up their browser and go back to the search engines they regularly use. Google and Yahoo might not have the enticements to switchover today up, but those will come. And I think those will help them to largely preserve their shares despite the IE7 rollout.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:16 AM | Permalink

September 29, 2006

Yahoo China Sues Hongyi's Qihoo For Unfair Competition

Reuters reports that Yahoo China is suing Qihoo, claiming that 360safe spyware software is prompting users to uninstall the Yahoo Toolbar. The spyware software claims that Yahoo's Toolbar is "malware" and is a risk to their computers. Joseph Tsai, Alibaba's chief financial officer, said that this is unfair competition, alluding to a former Yahoo employee named Zhou Hongyi who now heads up Qihoo. It is important to note that Zhou Hongyi sued Yahoo last month for defamation.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:30 AM | Permalink

June 22, 2006

Google Partners With Adobe For Toolbar Distribution In Shockwave, Other Product To Be Named

Both Adobe (PDF link) and Google have announced a new deal where Adobe will distribute the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer as part of Adobe Macromedia Shockwave Player downloads. That was supposed to begin yesterday, and bundling with other Adobe products will happen in the future.

Wait a minute? Weren't Yahoo and Adobe buddy-buddies? Yes -- a special version of the Yahoo Toolbar is built into the popular Adobe Acrobat Reader program, through a deal dating back to October 2004.

In January of this year, Google began distributing Adobe Reader as part of the Google Pack without the Yahoo Toolbar being part of it. Google told me (article for SEW members) then that the Adobe-Yahoo agreement only covered the distribution Adobe did.

So is the Yahoo-Adobe deal completely over? No. Reuters reports that Adobe says that will continue:

Adobe previously included Yahoo Inc.'s toolbar as an option with the Shockwave Player, Adobe spokeswoman Katie Juran said. Adobe still offers the Yahoo toolbar as an option for its Flash Player and Adobe Reader products, she said.

I just uninstalled Acrobat Reader and downloaded a fresh copy. I definitely see the Yahoo Toolbar as part of the latest installation.

As for the Abobe-Google deal, the bundling with Google Pack wasn't based on payment, Google told me at the time. This latest deal is a financial arrangement, though exactly how much money is changing hands is not disclosed.

As for the distribution, I downloaded Shockwave and got no prompt for the Google Toolbar to be added. Of course, I already had it in Internet Explorer, and that seems to be why I didn't get a separate install. The Shockwave FAQ suggests that you should see a separate install process and that this won't happen if you have the Google Toolbar already.

That FAQ also notes that the Yahoo Toolbar, previously bundled with Shockwave, has now been dropped. In addition, it says that that third parties that distribute Shockwave do not have to bundle the Google Toolbar with those distributions.

The Google Blog post also says:

Starting today, Adobe is offering the Google Toolbar to its customers as a free download -- a great way to take Google search with you anywhere on the web.

So far, that seems to be true within Shockwave. But it's also a bit overstated. The Google Toolbar on its own is not offered anywhere on the Adobe products page, nor does a search for "google toolbar" flag any page for those who just want the toolbar on its own

The best, most specific information is part of the Shockwave FAQ that I've mentioned. There is at least a direct link to the Google Toolbar download page. But that's much different that the idea the Google Blog suggests, that people visiting Adobe might be getting a pitch for the Google Toolbar on its own. Not yet, not so far.

Postscript Barry:

I was sent a screen capture of this in action, you can view the screen capture at tcal.net.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:48 AM | Permalink

March 27, 2006

Yahoo Updates Search Toolbar; Tabbed Browsing in IE & Delicious Tags

The Yahoo Search Blog announced that they have updated the Yahoo Toolbar. For IE users, you can use the toolbar to enable tabbed browsing in IE 5 or 6. For Firefox users, they have added for bookmarks, mail alerts, and AntiSpy for all countries that Yahoo supports (and no list of these is given).

In addition to those updates, they are now giving users the ability to tag content with del.icio.us directly from the browser. It is an optional feature that can be turned on by clicking here if the toolbar is already installed. If not, you can find the option under the Add/Edit Buttons page in the "Personal Tools" section. This move makes practical sense, since Yahoo Acquired Del.ico.us. Oh, you know del.icio.us is hard to spell, when Yahoo has a typo in the blog entry ("del.icio.us ito save").

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:52 AM | Permalink

February 10, 2006

Yahoo Releases Firefox Toolbar 1.1

Gary Price back in July 05 covered the release of Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox 1.0 and yesterday Yahoo! Search blog reports that 1.1 is out. Some new features include; improved stability for Firefox 1.5, one click to Email, Messenger, and 360°, and quick methods of saving to Yahoo My Web or Yahoo Bookmarks.

You can download the Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox 1.1 at http://toolbar.yahoo.com/firefox.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:10 AM | Permalink

February 8, 2006

Google Testing Software Distribution With Dell, Plus Details On IE7 Search Battle

We covered last month that Google was providing personal home pages for Dell. Dell testing preinstalled Google software package from Reuters now looks at how Google is working with Dell to put Google's desktop search and toolbar on Dell computers. It's said to be a test distribution, at the moment. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal looks at that and more about the search battle shaping up within IE7.

John Battelle points to Pressuring Microsoft, PC Makers Team Up With Its Software Rivals (paid sub. required) from the Wall Street Journal, which sparked the Reuters story about Google and Dell. The WSJ article covers how Google might pay Dell fees approaching $1 billion over three years for distribution.

The story goes deeper into concerns by Yahoo and Google that the new search toolbar in Internet Explorer 7 might hurt them, since MSN would be the default. Sure, it might. Then again, MSN Search has been the default in IE since at least IE3, if I recall. Despite this, non-Microsoft search engines haven't just survived, they've thrived. Yes, IE7 sports an actual search box this time, but I still think we'll see users change this off the default setting in various ways.

There's lots of detail on Google wanting Microsoft to ask consumers to make a conscious choice about search providers, rather than IE7 automatically using their choice in IE6 (which is probably MSN Search, for most people). It's an odd argument, given that Google has not demanded that Firefox make consumers do similar choices in that browser. A partnership deal makes Google the default in Firefox, except for Asian-language versions where Yahoo cut its own deals.

Chris Sherman is planning our own look at some of these issues in the near future. I'd love to see some universal agreement about how ALL browsers should handle choices of search providers, in terms of how defaults are set and can be changed. What I fear is another round of stealth default changes, where each of the players constantly try to switch you around.

Google and Yahoo encourage you to choose them as a default search provider through their software apps. I don't mind, because I can see they are clearly asking me when this happens. Both also try to encourage you to change in other ways, as you can see here and here. Again, I don't mind, because you can understand what's going on. But a few years ago, other players would just make the changes, leaving users puzzled about why all their searches mysteriously started going through some new search engine. We don't need that again.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:39 AM | Permalink

January 17, 2006

Yahoo Toolbar Embedded into New Version of WordPerfect

News from Corel that the Yahoo Toolbar is now being embedded directly into their just released Corel WordPerfect Office X3.

Yahoo Search technology also powers the Corel web site.

In late 2004, we blogged about the Yahoo Toolbar being bundled with downloads of Adobe Acrobat Reader. Yahoo also has co-branded versions of their toolbar available from OCLC and Intercontinental Hotels.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:36 AM | Permalink

January 6, 2006

Yahoo Go Puts Yahoo Services Into Cell Phones, TV & PCs

Yahoo has launched Yahoo Go (link via PaidContent), a suite of products designed to let people reach information whether they're on their PCs, phones or using TV. The suite will be formally announced by Yahoo CEO Terry Semel at CES keynote today

Yahoo Go Mobile currently works only for Nokia Series 60 phones. It will allow you to sync your contacts, photos and mail with Yahoo. Yahoo says that in the near future, Yahoo Go Mobile will be preinstalled on the Nokia 6682 from Cingular Wireless. Beyond Yahoo Go Mobile, plain old Yahoo Mobile has a wide range of services, some of which involve no special software at all.

Yahoo Go TV is a coming application for Windows XP machines that allows you to see photo slide shows, listen to internet radio stations, search for movie info and clips and find video from the web. What's the TV part, then? It will work with a PC-enabled TV, News.com reports. Or, I suspect, a PC that displays TV in addition to a PC desktop, such as the Windows Media Center does. This application looks to tap into existing Yahoo products but perhaps make them easier for users to be aware of through a more customized software interface.

Yahoo Go Desktop / PC is another coming application that looks incredibly similar to the Google Sidebar. It allows you to apparently tap into and sync more easily with existing Yahoo services such as Flickr photo sharing, blogging on Yahoo 360 and Yahoo Mail. A new "social browser" is also promised, though this seems to be the sidebar or dashboard-like application I mentioned. From various reports, Yahoo Go Dashboard appears to be the name of this.

Yahoo To Launch Go Initiative; Mobile, Connected TVs & Desktop Access over at PaidContent has a nice summary, and via Russell Beattie, a number of articles have some additional details.

Yahoo goes mobile over at News.com says Yahoo Go Mobile will work in 10 different countries (I suspect this actually means it will work with 10 different Yahoo country specific editions, such as Yahoo US versus Yahoo UK). Yahoo Go TV is promised for download before April and remote recording of TV shows is planned.

Yahoo Launches Content Service for Phones from the AP covers Yahoo working with Motorola to bring Yahoo Go into its phones, though Google still looks to be the preferred search provider for Motorola, given its deal announced today.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:33 AM | Permalink

September 20, 2005

Issues With Yahoo Messenger Installs

Yahoo IM users get more than they bargained for from News.com earlier this month looks at how the latest version of Yahoo's instant messaging client wants to make itself at home on your desktop beyond just instant messaging. Go with the defaults, and you'll not just get Yahoo Messenger but also the Yahoo Toolbar and new "Yahoo Extras" with "live links" that sound like Google AutoLink but seem to only act that way in the IM client, from what I can see. The install also tries to make Yahoo your default home page and search tool. It's easy to choose not to add any of these additional features, programs and changes, assuming you look for the right checkboxes, but many don't.

Yahoo's Jeremy Zawodny saw the story and commented that he found the practice "insulting and disrepectful." Google UI designer Kevin Fox chimes in on the comments at Jeremy's blog about dislike the tactics as well and defending Google's bundling of tools with WinZip as being "upfront."

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:59 AM | Permalink

August 19, 2005

New Version of Yahoo Toolbar for IE Released, Offers Access to YQ

Over on the Yahoo Search Blog, YQ developer and guru, Reiner Kraft, posts that a new version of the Yahoo Toolbar for Internet Explorer is available and now includes easy access to YQ's contextually-based info and tools. Simply highlight word(s) on any web page (with Yahoo for Toolbar active) and "automagically" an icon appears. Click and run a web search on the highlighted terms, save the highlighted content to My Web, or translate non-English text into English.

Along with YQ technology now being a part of the Yahoo Toolbar for IE, Kraft notes that it's also available as part of latest release of Yahoo Messenger with Voice.

Finally, the Yahoo Toolbar for IE now includes access to the Yahoo Music Engine.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:05 PM | Permalink

July 27, 2005

Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox Leaves Beta, Version 1.0 Now Available

After about 5 1/2 months as a beta release, version 1.0 of the feature-filled Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox has just been made available.

Version 1.0 includes several new features including:

• A drag-n-drop resizable search box
• A right mouse click menu to open bookmarks and toolbar buttons in new windows or tabs
• A search history drop down that automatically expands to the length of the longest search query
• Addition of RSS / Atom feeds to My Yahoo! via the Live Bookmarks icon
• Support for the latest Firefox developer releases and alpha/beta browsers

Additionally, the Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox is now available in the following languages:

• Chinese (Taiwan, Hong Kong)
• English (UK)
• French
• German
• Korean

For more about the Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox, here's a link to Danny's overview article from February.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:01 PM | Permalink

July 5, 2005

Official Google Toolbar For Firefox Comes This Week, But Don't Comment!

Google is to release a version of its Google Toolbar specifically for Firefox later this week. Watch the Google Toolbar site for news of when it is ready, and see below about Google's absurd advice not to comment about the toolbar launch until it happens.

Finally! In February, I'd asked Google why, despite being a close Firefox partner, it still hadn't produced a toolbar for the increasingly popular browser. The response was that the Googlebar tool for Firefox was seen as filling the need. Googlebar For Firefox, Plus The Google & Firefox Deal covers that plus how Googlebar does much of what the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer doesn't.

Can't wait? Go get Googlebar and also SearchStatus, which as I've explained gives you PageRank information and other cool features.

Yahoo Toolbar For Firefox and Closer Look At Yahoo Toolbar For Firefox covers the existing official toolbar for Firefox that Yahoo offers. Also see Firefox Got Yahoo! for more directly from Yahoo.

For some other Firefox and search-related tips, see our recent series on searching and Firefox, the Three Cool Search Gizmos and A Great Search Tool for Firefox article and our Toolbars & Utilities category for Search Engine Watch members.

Firefox users who like toolbars should be sure check out Groowe, an easy way to search against multiple search engines at once and imitate special features their own toolbars provide. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Finally, remember that if anyone in the press asks you about the new Google Toolbar For Firefox, don't comment! At least, don't comment until the news is officially released via a planned Google press release. To help everyone understand this important need, Google posted this publicly:

Hey Googlebar folks, long time no talk. I thought I'd drop you a note to give a heads up on something Google will be releasing next week: a version of our IE Toolbar for Firefox. It will most likely be released on July 7th, but press releases will go out at 9pm on July 6th. Since you were in the Google-toolbar-for-firefox space first, it's conceivable that the press might contact you for comment. If they do it would be great if you could hold of replying until our press releases go out on the 6th.

Yes, if you post news of a secret launch in a public place, it's conceivable the press might hear about it before the launch. But then again, this is becoming a nice way to get triple the publicity for your products, these days.

In the past, we had the "beta" release and then the "final" release as a way to get a double-dose of press gushing. Now we have the triple -- news that accidentally leaks out, then the formal beta release, then the final release (or some product upgrade for those product that never emerge from beta).

A leak like this worked for Google Video last week, so why not do the same for the Google Toolbar For Firefox this week? The real question is, how do you get the quadruple dose of publicity going forward?

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 5:21 AM | Permalink

April 5, 2005

Yahoo Adds Firefox Toolbar for Mac and Linux Users; Anti-Spy Feature Also Added

A bit of toolbar news out of Sunnyvale today.

News that Yahoo has released a service for Yahoo Toolbar users as well as two new versions of the toolbar.

Here's what's new:

+ Yahoo's Anti-Spy technology is now an option for Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox (Windows only) users.

+ The Yahoo Toolbar has also just been released for Mac and Linux users of Firefox.

Details here.

UPDATE: If you're not seeing the links, check back in a few hours.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:03 PM | Permalink

February 24, 2005

Word of a Yahoo! Toolbar for Mac Users

On the heels of their just released Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox, we just read a report by O'Reilly blogger Nat Torkington that a Yahoo Toolbar for Macintosh is coming. Is this just a rumor? Nope, Torkington says that he has been using the Yahoo! Toolbar for the last few weeks via a copy he received from a "Friend on the Inside." No word as to precisely when the Yahoo! Mac toolbar will be released. More in Torkington's post: Yahoo! Mac Toolbar.

Posted by Gary Price at 3:32 PM | Permalink

February 10, 2005

Closer Look At Yahoo Toolbar For Firefox

I've been using Firefox for the past three weeks now and generally enjoying the experience. But I've missed some of the easy access options the Google Toolbar has allowed, like being able to quickly search for all pages on a particular web site or viewing a cached copy of a page.

Google, of course, doesn't yet support Firefox. That dawdling is Yahoo's gain, thanks to the new Yahoo Toolbar For Firefox that Gary blogged about earlier.

At a site and want to search all the pages just there? A drop-down box makes this easy. The drop down box also provides easy access to things like Yahoo News, Yahoo Shopping and other specialized search options.

That's handy. For example, I used to hit Google News using its toolbar drop down option. The built-in Firefox search box isn't configured for this. I know, I know -- there are ways to customize that to your heart's content. I could search at Mycroft for a plug-in that will do it. But I'm busy like other people, so it's nice to have a search engine just configure things I want for me. Yahoo's done it -- Google hasn't. As I result, I'm more likely to hit Yahoo News now.

Want a dedicated button for some of these options? Use the customization screen you can reach by using the toolbar's pencil icon to set these up. Among those options is the ability to have a Translate Page feature added to the toolbar, along with a range of other items.

The ability to add a page's feed to your My Yahoo account is handy, but this only works for pages where autodiscovery is supported. If the site you are at has done this, you see a blue box with a + symbol show up. Click on that, and into My Yahoo it goes. Want to test? The SEW Blog has autodiscovery in place and should show you a blue box, while it's not yet been added to the SEW home page.

Yahoo also knows about feeds from all over the web, as I've written before. A nice feature would be if it could provide this option for places where autodiscovery isn't provided. Even better would be a way to send the feed to the feedreader of your choice instead of -- or at least along with -- My Yahoo.

What's missing? Cache viewing is a biggie. With a click, I can see exactly what Google has recorded for any page I'm viewing. I want the same from Yahoo in this. Click on that, and the feed will be added.

Google Desktop-like support of capturing copies of what I've viewed on the web also isn't present. That's actually part of the Google Desktop tool -- but I want someone, Google, Yahoo, anyone, to make it so what I'm now viewing in Firefox isn't lost for future recall.

Reverse link lookup is another missing in action. It's nice to be on a page and with a click, see all the backlinks to it. Yahoo, bring it on! But in the meantime, checkout SearchStatus, which I've written about before. That will give you backwards links from Yahoo, Google and others.

Those who can't drag themselves away from the Google PageRank meter will be happy to know that SearchStatus provides this and Alexa rankings, plus cached pages from Archive.org. It's a seriously nice little tool.

For some other Firefox and search-related tips, see our recent series on searching and Firefox, the Three Cool Search Gizmos and A Great Search Tool for Firefox article and our Toolbars & Utilities category for Search Engine Watch members. Also see Firefox Got Yahoo! for more directly from Yahoo.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:08 AM | Permalink

Yahoo! Toolbar For Firefox Now Available

Requests from Firefox users asking for a version of the Yahoo Toolbar for their browser have been heard. Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox has just been released for Windows. Versions for MacOS X and Linux are coming soon. We haven't had a chance to download and test the toolbar yet but from what we've heard it will contain all of the features that Yahoo Toolbar for Windows offers except the anti-spyware option which is coming soon. It also offers a Yahoo Mail alert option and provides a one-click solution to add RSS feeds to your My Yahoo! page.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:01 AM | Permalink

January 5, 2005

New Version of Acrobat Includes Yahoo Toolbar and Search Options

A new version (7.0) of the Adobe Acrobat Reader was released today. The download page (for some Windows versions)

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