From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Google Toolbar
Google Toolbar
Google Toolbar System Requirements: Windows and Microsoft Internet
Explorer.
Google Toolbar 3.0 for Firefox Septem-
Developer(s) Google ber 22, 2005
Stable 7.1.2003.1856 (Internet Explorer) New features:
release 7.1.2011.0512b (Firefox) / September 0, 2011 • Feed integration with the Google Personalized
(Internet Explorer) Homepage
May 12, 2011 (Firefox)
• Google Suggest, and a menu allowing people to
Operating Microsoft Windows customize icons on the toolbar.
system System Requirements: Firefox; Windows, Mac, and Linux
Type Toolbar
Google Toolbar 4.0 January 29, 2006
License Proprietary freeware
New features:
Website toolbar.google.com/ • Instant suggestions when typing a search request
• Easy way to bookmark pages
Google Toolbar is an Internet browser toolbar only avail- • Custom user defined buttons to search external web
able for Internet Explorer and Firefox (up to version sites
4.0[1]). System Requirements: Windows XP
History Google Toolbar 5.0 December 12, 2007
New features:
Google Toolbar 1.0 December 11, 2000 • Google Gadgets
• Google Notebook to save content (text and images)
New features:
with a bookmark
• Direct access to the Google search functionality from
• Forms auto-fill with a single click
any web page
• Toolbar settings are saved online
• Web Site search
• Suggestions for broken links
• Automatic location of search terms on the web page
System Requirements: Internet Explorer, Windows XP,
with each word highlighted in its own color;
Vista
• PageRank – Google’s ranking the page
System Requirements: Windows 95, 98, 2000 or NT, and
version 5.0 or higher of Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Google Toolbar 6.0 February 24, 2009
New features:
Google Toolbar 2.0 August 13, 2003 • Quick Search Box feature that provides search
functionality outside of the browser
New features:
• Internet Explorer 8 support
• Pop-up Blocker
• Incremental improvements for search suggestions,
• AutoFill: Autocompletion of web forms with
Google Bookmarks, Autofill, and Custom Buttons and
information saved a user’s computer.
gadgets
• BlogThis: Posting of links to Blogger.com weblogs
System Requirements: Internet Explorer, Windows XP-
System Requirements: Windows and Microsoft Internet
SP2/Vista/7+
Explorer.
Google Toolbar 3.0 February 16, 2005 Google Toolbar 7.0 for Firefox August 10,
New features:
2010
• SpellCheck New features:
• AutoLink for U.S. address on a web page to an Google • Google Toolbar is compatible with Firefox 4 Beta.
map, packages tracking and links for iSBN numbers. System Requirements: Firefox; Windows, Mac OS X, and
• WordTranslator Linux
1
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Google Toolbar
Google Toolbar 7.0 for Internet Explorer the companies which received AutoLinks had paid for the
service."
April 21, 2011
New features:
• Toolbar Instant Privacy
System Requirements: Internet Explorer, Windows XP- Google Watch has raised concerns about Google Toolbar’s
SP2/Vista/7+ possible threats to privacy, such as tracking of browsing
patterns, automatic installation of updates without the
Features user’s knowledge, and a privacy policy that can be re-
vised without notice[7]. The toolbar does not track per-
Google toolbar resides above the browser’s tab bar and sonally identifiable surfing activities of the end user un-
provides a search box to carry out web searches. Users less advanced features such as PageRank are specifically
can log into their Gmail accounts and access their email, enabled by the user[8]. It does track "anonymous" statis-
saved bookmarks, and web history. It has tools such as tics, which can reveal a lot of information when correlat-
AutoLink, AutoFill, translation, spell checker common to ed with other data, although similar criticisms could be
all browsers, while pop-up blocker and word finder are made of Google’s online search engine[9].
restricted to Internet Explorer[2]. Google toolbar is often
distributed through product bundling with a primary
download.
Compatibility
Sidewiki As from Firefox version 5, Google toolbar is no longer
Google Sidewiki was launched on September 23, 2009, supported for Firefox, Although unofficially people are
allowing users to make comments, which are visible to still using the lasted version on FireFox 8 with no com-
the public, on any web page[3]. Google uses ranking algo- patibility problems.
rithms to determine comment relevancy and usefulness
using criteria such as users voting up and down a com-
ment and past contributions. Sidewiki is currently avail-
Google Compute
able for Internet Explorer and Firefox through Google Google Compute was a separately downloadable add-on
Toolbar, the Google Chrome browser through an add-on, for the Google Toolbar which utilized the user’s comput-
and for other browsers, like Safari, it is available as a er to help the Folding@home distributed computing pro-
bookmarklet. ject, which studies disease-relevant protein folding and
Web site owners cannot control Sidewiki com- other molecular dynamics. It was founded in March 2002
ments[4], and there is currently no way for a web site to by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Functionally, it down-
opt out of Sidewiki; however, Sidewiki is disabled on se- loaded a small packet of work, performed calculations
cure sites[5]. on it, and uploaded it back to Stanford University.[10]
In September 2011, Google announced that it would Although it was limited in functionality and scope, it in-
discontinue Sidewiki. creased Folding@home’s participation from 10,000 up to
about 30,000 active CPUs.[11] The program ended in Octo-
My Location ber 2005 in favor of the project’s official clients, and is no
longer available for the Toolbar.[12][13]
My Location is a geolocation service which uses the lo-
cation of Wi-Fi access points to determine the toolbar
user’s location[6]. This location is used to optimize search Inoperability with ISP-based
results based on where the user is located[6]. Google Tool-
bar can also provide the geolocation data to third-party DNS hijacking
websites[6] through the W3C Geolocation API. A number of Internet service providers have implement-
ed DNS hijacking with the purpose of redirecting users to
AutoLink advertisements whenever they mistype a URL in a brows-
Google toolbar was criticized when the AutoLink feature er. Where an ISP has implemented this configuration, it
was added to the toolbar because this new feature di- interferes with some functionality of the Google Toolbar.
rected users to pre-selected commercial websites such as
Amazon.com and Google Maps. For example, if it finds a Similar Toolbars
book’s ISBN number on a webpage, it provides a link to
Amazon’s product page for the particular book. Google • Advanced Searchbar
said that the feature "adds useful links" and "none of • Alexa Toolbar
• AOL Toolbar
2
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Google Toolbar
• Bing Bar [5] "How do webmasters opt out of sidewiki?".
• Universal Toolbar http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/
• Yahoo! Toolbar Webmasters/thread?tid=494bb6012632fb05&hl=en.
Retrieved February 24, 2010.
See also [6] ^ "Toolbar Help". Google. http://www.google.com/
support/toolbar/bin/answer.py?hl=en-
• yolink uk&answer=166104. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
• Form filler [7] Google’s new toolbar: Now more evil than ever
• Folding@home [8] "Does Wesley’s Google Toolbar Invade Your
• List of distributed computing projects Privacy? Not Really…". TechPluto. May 16, 2009.
• SETI@home http://www.techpluto.com/google-toolbar-
• The intentional surfer model – how the toolbar advanced-features/. Retrieved May 17, 2009.
contributes to PageRank [9] Is Google too powerful? by Bill Thompson, BBC
News, 2/21/2003
References [10] Shankland, Stephen (March 22, 2002). "Google
takes on supercomputing". CNet News.
[1] http://www.google.com/support/toolbar/bin/ http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-867091.html.
answer.py?answer=1342452&topic=15356&hl=en [11] "Futures in Biotech 27: Folding@home at 1.3
[2] "Google Toolbar Features". Google. Petaflops" (Interview, webcast). 2007-12-28.
http://www.google.com/intl/en/toolbar/ie/ http://castroller.com/Podcasts/FuturesInBiotech/
features.html. Retrieved May 16, 2009. 249153.
[3] "Help and learn from others as you browse the [12] ChelseaOilman (2005-12-30). "Google is after your
web: Google Sidewiki". Google. September 23, 2009. CPU cycles". http://hardforum.com/
http://www.googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/ showpost.php?p=1028770683&postcount=4.
help-and-learn-from-others-as-you.html. Retrieved 2011-09-06.
Retrieved September 23, 2009. [13] Google (2007). "Your computer’s idle time is too
[4] Andrew Keen (September 24, 2009). "Sidewiki: precious to waste". http://toolbar.google.com/dc/
Google colonial sideswipe". The Daily Telegraph offerdc.html/. Retrieved 2011-09-06.
(UK). http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/
andrewkeen/100003634/sidewiki-google-colonial-
sideswipe/. Retrieved December 12, 2009. External links
• Google Toolbar (redirects based on browser)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Google_Toolbar&oldid=463878486"
Categories:
• Google software
• Distributed computing projects
• Mozilla add-ons
• Internet Explorer add-ons
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