Good browser toolbars.

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Edit (6/1/04): I decided to make a better toolbar that all the others out there. They all want to promote their searches and we decided to make one that searches them all.

Able2Know.com Toolbar

http://toolbar.able2know.com/images/a2k-too-baa.gif

Download Able2Know.com Toolbar

Alexa

http://pages.alexa.com/images/alexa_toolbar_7.gif

Download Alexa

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System Requirements: Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer 5.0 or newer

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Get rid of those annoying popup ads.
Search the Web and other resources directly from your toolbar.
Learn about Web sites including traffic information and contact info.
Surf more efficiently with Related Links for each page.
Share opinions about sites with other users.

Alexa (an Amazon site) uses google to enhance it's search features. Its unique feature is that it contains user submitted reviews and traffic analysis for most of the internet. Sites are rated in order, e.g. yahoo is number 1 (in traffic) google is 5 etc.

Alexa collects your surfing information in aggregate and it's from this data that the traffic is reported.

It automatically shows related links on the toolbar and you have one click access to dictionary and thesaurus look ups. You also have one cleck access to Amazon (it's parent site) and news sources.

Their traffic data is imperfect but the best available on the net. Sites with older demographics are less likely to ahve high traffic rankings. New sites (less than a year if they are not large) are a bit weakly represented. Some Korean sites are very hightly respresented and sites related to Alexia like Amazon are a bit too high (because of the fact taht Amazon visitors are more likely to discover the tool bar and therefore they are dispoportionately represented by the tool bar stats.

Some users will like their popup blocking capabilities.

Note to webmasters: Using the tool bar will of course, improve your traffic rankings. Alexa uis a good site to use to investigate backwards links. It takes google results and filters them in a way google doesn't.

'Googoo toobaa"

http://toolbar.google.com/

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System Requirements
Microsoft Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP
Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5 or later

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Features
Google Search: Access Google's search technology from any web page.
Search Site: Search only the pages of the site you're visiting.
PageRank: See Google's ranking of the current page.
Page Info: Access more information about a page including similar pages, pages that link back to that page, as well as a cached snapshot.
Highlight: Highlight your search terms as they appear on the page; each word in its own color.
Word Find: Find your search terms wherever they appear on the page.

Google's toolbar also reports browsing behavior unless you choose to not send this data in exchange for less features (mainly no pagerank data is displayed for the site).

Google toolbars can open searches in a new window. They display a web page's category in the dmoz directory and show it'pagerank (the way google values the weight of a page). The search words are passed to the toolbar and clicking on them after a search will perform the CTRL + F function on the page. Making it easy to locate your keyword in a big document.

Google has one button access to it's news services.

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In deciding whether a toolbar is worth it you need to ask yourself whether the features available on their sites (all the toolbar features can be used from their respective sites) are good enough to want instant access to them. Google works well as a spell check and a search. Alexa gives information about the sites you are visiting that you can't get elsewhere.

Ultimately it's up to you whether you want them at the top of your browser. If you install them you can easily toggle them on and off.

You can use both at the same time if you wish.

What other toolbars do you like? Yahoo has one that is good for anyoe who uses yahoo's services like email IM etc.

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Type: Discussion • Score: 1 • Views: 4,883 • Replies: 28

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Cool. Now if I install this, will it get rid of my yahoo tool bar? I like my yahoo toolbar because I have yahoo mail and other stuff on there that I use and I don't want to interfere with that.

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They will work with the yahoo toolbar as well.

I have created an A2K toolbar with an affiliate but am still deciding whether it's worth releasing.

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In this thread, perhaps we can consider some cautions, too? I had the alexa toolbar for about 4 months and then discovered the extent to which tracking cookies and files were assessed on my own system and on searches. I manually deleted associated garbage and then altered my usage. So, I bootkicked the toolbar out and now prefer to just go to the alexa homepage at http://www.alexa.com and use the search there. I heartily recommend the alexa search over using just google, and I'm enjoying the use of http://www.kartoo.com which provides a visual linkage search map. Both the alexa and kartoo searches will take just a bit of exploration and experiment to tweak to your most effective methods.

One of the worst toolbars I've used is Opera 7 - and here is an example. I've got a free email account there and logging in takes some mental gymnastics. One must remember that the toolbar there accesses the email account by going to the "Help" link!

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I gave the caustions. Both google and alexa use brwosing information in aggregate. Google allows you to opt out.

Thing is, I don't mind at all. They do not try to associate your data to you personally. And with the sampling they have they have your data anyway (because the average will represent you frequently).

Alexa has a very bad rap, much worse than they deserve. Many spyware removal programs went so overboard with the Alexa paranoia that they flagged a Microsoft Component by the same name and try to remove those files.

Alexa and Google are very straightforward with what they do, and they do not use it to market to you or anything. They only collect aggregate data.

And since you can turn the toolbars on and off you can easily hide any information that you are worried about them getting.

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I've only ever used the Google toolbar. In general I hate add-ins but I use Google so often that it has pretty much become an essential item for me.

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I love the googoo toobaa. I can't use a browser without it.

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I've had the google bar for a while, and use it constantly. The yahoo bar is there as well.

Now, if I add the Alexa, does that just add another toolbar, or does it replace anything? I research a lot, and like the convenience of having the source to go to right at the top.

This is silly. Why don't I just go to Alexa and see? Because I want to ask you.

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It just adds another toolbar.

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I don't recommend the yahoo bar unless you use yahoo's services not related to search.

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That's about it with yahoo. I have it because I also use their mail and messenger, but aaside from that, zilch. I think I'll try alexa. Can always uninstall, right?

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Yup, you can uninstall easily and you can turn it on and off more easily than any other toolbar I know of.

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Ive always wondered, whatever happened to Northern Light? They were the best at scientific literature sources, and they charged for download reprints. However their method of collecting revenue was Dark Ages

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After blowing through more than $1 billion on acquisitions and ill-fated operations, Chicago's Divine Inc. is being auctioned for $57.1 million in cash and assumed liabilities.

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Looks good to me. I'm gonna give it a try. Thanks Craven, you sweet thing ;-)

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"ALEXA COLLECTS AND STORES INFORMATION ABOUT THE WEB PAGES YOU VIEW, THE DATA YOU ENTER IN ONLINE FORMS AND SEARCH FIELDS WHILE USING THE ALEXA SOFTWARE, AND, WITH VERSIONS 5.0 AND HIGHER OF THE BROWSER COMPANION SOFTWARE, THE PRODUCTS YOU PURCHASE ONLINE. ALTHOUGH ALEXA DOES NOT ATTEMPT TO ANALYZE WEB USAGE DATA TO DETERMINE THE IDENTITY OF ANY ALEXA USER, SOME INFORMATION COLLECTED BY THE SOFTWARE IS PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE. ALEXA AGGREGATES AND ANALYZES THE INFORMATION IT COLLECTS TO IMPROVE ITS SERVICE AND TO PREPARE REPORTS ABOUT AGGREGATE WEB USAGE AND SHOPPING HABITS."

The above is from the alexa-site itself.

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I find this advice quite reasonable:
Well, the Alexa toolbar which is available for download contains spyware agents whereby information about your web surfing is gathered for statistics purposes. Whether or not the owner of Alexa does other things with this information is not known. If you wish to use some of the Alexa functions, it is best to go to http://info.alexa.com and get the information you want from the web site itself. from: spyware information

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Walter some info in your quotes is patently false. It is exactly the hyperbolic crap about Alexa that has circulated.

The owner of Alexa is amazon, not some shady spyware dealer.

But yes, the paranoid better avoid using any toolbars or the internet, after all the ISPs could just be sending you the data packets but WHETHER OR NOT THEY ARE USING YOUR INFORMATION FOR OTHER PURPOSES IS NOT KNOWN.

Really, the paranoid shouldn't use computers. You can control Alexa easily, you can opt out of Google. They are upstanding sites and tell you exactly what they are doing with the data and they use it in aggregate.

Spyware collects this information and usually tried to sneak onto your computer through a bundled download. Your ISP can be collecting data from you as well (and some do).

Heck just visiting a site can give out personally identifiable data.

The paranid bug me, you can easily control your privacy but the paranoid like to rant about it and try to scare others. The rants about Alexa have been disproportionate.

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Well, I don't mind at all.

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Craven
I installed it, but when I go off line and come back, it's gone.

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Never mind. I just found the spot where I can drop it back down.

Thanks by the way Craven. I hate pop ups to death and the less I have of them, the better ;-)

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Good browser toolbars.

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