Google to Release Firefox Toolbar 348
daria42 writes "Google is about to release a Firefox version of its toolbar, according to an e-mail sent to developers of the open source GoogleBar project. The e-mail claims to have been sent by Google engineer Fritz Schneider and is dated 1 July. "It has pretty much the same features as the latest IE toolbar except of course for things like the popup blocker," the e-mail said (Pop-up blocking is an in-built feature of Firefox)."
FirefoogleBar (Score:2, Funny)
Re:FirefoogleBar (Score:4, Funny)
Re:FirefoogleBar (Score:4, Funny)
Linux 8.0?!? (Score:5, Funny)
I knew being a Gentoo user would subject me to some delays while waiting for everything to compile, but this is ridiculous! 8.0!?! I'm still running 2.6.10!
Re:Linux 8.0?!? (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Linux 8.0?!? (Score:2, Informative)
It might be a reference to Red Hat 8.0...
(may be!)Re:Linux 8.0?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Linux 8.0?!? (Score:2)
One of my pet peeves:
"I have a problem with my Linux"
"Yes? What's up?"
"I'm running Linux 9.3
Re:Linux 8.0?!? (Score:4, Funny)
Well, crap! I guess we have a long wait then, since the current version of Red Hat's operating system ... you know, "The corporate Linux standard" [redhat.com] ... is only version 4.
</sarcasm>Re:Linux 8.0?!? (Score:2, Interesting)
We all know that means Red Hat 8.0+. Quit complaining, not everyone knows that much about linux.
Exactly, you really can't start harassing new people due to the spaghetti versioning system that Linux and it's associated distros all have. Redhat 9, Redhat Fedora Core 4, Debian 3, Linux 2.4, Linux 2.6, Gnome 2, KDE 3. And to guaruntee any sort of compatibility or help, you need to know exactly what you're running.
I would have expected more from a Google employee to be honest, but maybe he worded it that
Re:Linux 8.0?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Linux 8.0?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Linux 8.0?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Linux 8.0?!? (Score:2, Insightful)
Then he should have said RedHat...
Re:Linux 8.0?!? (Score:3, Funny)
That's great.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's great.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly, what does the Google toolbar offer that Firefox doesn't already have, or that isn't already adequately covered by another extension?
Re:That's great.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Highlighter... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:That's great.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:That's great.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Often I find myself searcing for a technical spec, or whatnot, and I want to get to the part that I JUST saw in the little google preview blurb, since I know that's what I need. This just saves me from having to do anything but click the word on the tollbar.
Re:That's great.... (Score:3, Informative)
Well, hopefully it can share another toolbar with other buttons already on it, because the last version of googlebar I tried insisted on having an entire bar to itself, thus wasting more screen space.
Re:That's great.... (Score:2)
Re:That's great.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:That's great.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Looking at the screenshots, I don't see any difference in functionality. Only slight layout differences.
Re:That's great.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Useless-osaurus rex (Score:2)
At the very least, this thing should access all of Google's weird searches. Movies, Maps, etc.
Also, it should be in Klingon.
Re:That's great.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Having highlighting on a page from a search is nice, plus the PAGERANK is a useful tool in itself for web designers. I would be interested in this, although I loath to loose screen space.
How about have the Menu bar hideable?
I only ever use tools / extensions (page info being available on right click to get to media tab)
Re:That's great.... (Score:3, Informative)
[mozilla.org] https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php ?application=firefox&id=349 [mozilla.org]
why this wasnt just built into the GUI in the first place, i have no idea.
Re:That's great.... (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.google.com/search?q=%s
and put "g" in the keyword field. Searches are a simple as "g searchterm" in the address bar, and you gain all the space of the search box.
I've got similar smart bookmarks for google groups, images, babelfish, several dictionaries, mathworld, acronyms,
Yahoo's firefox toolbar (Score:5, Informative)
http://toolbar.yahoo.com/firefox?fr=firefoxtoolba
Re:Yahoo's firefox toolbar (Score:5, Insightful)
Google gets all the hype, yahoo gets no respect. I wonder why.
Re:Yahoo's firefox toolbar (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Yahoo's firefox toolbar (Score:4, Interesting)
They attach ads to all your outbound emails. This alone drives me away. I've taken to blocking all of yahoo's ads because they're so damn huge and intrusive, but since it bugs me ethically to frequently use their service with ads blocked, I just don't use their service.
Yahoo's search is fine now, but they were leading the charge in "pay for placement" not two years ago. There's some interesting options like "save" and "block" in searches, but they appear to be no-ops. Seems to provide no value over google, really.
Their toolbar is bundled with completely inappropriate things like acrobat, and shoveled onto my machine like so much spyware.
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Greasemonkey! (Score:2, Interesting)
Meh. All of that and more can be done with Greasemonkey [mozdev.org] (scripts directory [dunck.us]) (Internet Explorer implementation [reifysoft.com]), without the added clutter of Yet Another Toolbar, and without the potential paran
Re:Greasemonkey! (Score:2)
FWIW, User JavaScripts is the Opera version of it, and it has a Greasemonkey compatibility mode.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Why leave out the Pop-Up blocker? (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't that indicate that a significant number of people would appreciate Google's crack it as well?
Re:Why leave out the Pop-Up blocker? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why leave out the Pop-Up blocker? (Score:2)
Adblock blocks elements of a page, pop-up blocker block pop-ups are are built into firefox. Hence Google leaves out the pop-up blocker in the Google bar for Firefox.
Googlebar never did what adblock does.
Not Entirely As Advertised (Score:5, Insightful)
If only that were still true.... Sadly, the advertisers appear to be way ahead of the Mozilla devs on this one.
Re:Not Entirely As Advertised (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not Entirely As Advertised (Score:3, Informative)
Done, no more popups.
It's not Firefox launching the popups. (Score:5, Informative)
You can use the Flashblock extension [mozdev.org] to run only the flash animations that you want to run.
Re:Not Entirely As Advertised (Score:2)
Re:Not Entirely As Advertised (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not Entirely As Advertised (Score:2)
Oh, right, there are actually some legit uses of javascript. There's a plugin that lets you whitelist/blacklist sites to use JS on... can't find it now, as it refuses to install as a normal user under linuz moz, but I know it's out there...
Google Compute (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Google Compute (Score:2)
If you want to fold for team Google, install the Folding@home client from http://folding.stanford.edu/ [stanford.edu], and set your team to 446.
Why you'd want to do that, though, is beyond me. Fold for team 2630, instead - that way, you actually get to fold for a real team (The Tech Report). While you're at it, fold for the subteam (basically, a shared username) "dont_ya_mean_type" (without the quotes).
Re:Google Compute (Score:2)
I think what sets Google Compute apart is the possibility of it running similarly to BOINC (in theory), in that it could participate in a series of challenges down the road, all through a simple interface. Sure you can go and install the individual clients, but the Google Compute feature is more likely something an average joe will use.
sorta like the old SETI@home... when it was just a simple screensaver, it was easy to convince everybody
Why so late ? (Score:4, Interesting)
How about other neat google goodies like Google Desktop Search and Picasa photo organizer ? Any guess if they would provide these utilities for *nix too.
Re:Why so late ? (Score:2)
Methinks some Google developers might be a little pissed at that one...
Googlebar has several other merits. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Googlebar has several other merits. (Score:2)
Re:Googlebar has several other merits. (Score:2)
At least it is for me. I click '/' and type, and it finds what I am looking for. Thanks for reminding me about the feature though - it is one of those I know exists but keep forgetting when I want to use it.
Re:Googlebar has several other merits. (Score:2)
Sorry about that.
Re:Googlebar has several other merits. (Score:3, Informative)
Could be accomplished by adding site:slashdot.org to the query, or alternatively, Yahoo! toolbar for Firefox (has been there all along) has a search within the site button.
Re:Googlebar has several other merits. (Score:2)
Re:Googlebar has several other merits. (Score:2)
It seems to me that if type-ahead (or / search) was sufficient, I wouldn't be using t
And this changes things how??? (Score:4, Insightful)
I see the google search bar
I don't think anyone goes to google for anything besides searching....
My .000002 cents
Re:And this changes things how??? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:And this changes things how??? (Score:2)
the power of google... (Score:5, Funny)
Steve: *deep sigh* "I'm suing, I'm suing..."
Got an A for effort anyways (Score:3, Insightful)
I think instead of porting the IE stuff to FF, google should use the easy extensibility of FF as a way for easy experimentation and come up with some wild stuff that hasn't been seen yet. Firefox is all early adopters; I think google would have great success on all fronts testing out all their really forward thinking ideas on FF and then porting the stuff that works well to IE. As it is, they are being a little inefficient here.
(Cause providing the best search engine, the best free email, and google maps is nowhere near good enough, dammitl. Those lazy bastards aren't taking over the world quickly enough)
I use the prGooglebar extension (Score:2)
it has everything I need, I don't see why google would even bother when things like that exist.
prGooglebar is based on another one:
http://googlebar.mozdev.org/ [mozdev.org]
This is good news - Really (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I have this already (Score:3, Funny)
what's new (Score:3, Interesting)
- Search and highlight within a page
- Easy google,ebay,etc. search (using mycroft and its extensions)
- Popup blocker (which works even better in combination with adblock)
- Auto filling form fields
- Browsing by names, instead of URLs
Really, what's left? oh yeah, screen space lost for a useless bar full of existent features and colored O. Well, maybe I'll install it for the colorfull logo, since it fits well with my current theme but that's all!
Not redundant (Score:5, Insightful)
Firstly, this is about choice. You can have the official Google toolbar or the alternatives. Google have even said they will continue to link to Googlebar so users know they have the choice
Secondly, it is more likely to be used by non-geek users, simply becuase it comes from Google.
Thirdly, it is very good publicity for Firefox - it will be mentioned in Google press releases, and on pages about the Google Toolbar.
Fourthly, it will pressure others who have IE only extensions to produce Firefox versions - as Yahoo and Clusty already have.
popup blocking (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:popup blocking (Score:3, Informative)
can't beat ctrl+k (Score:3, Informative)
if for every search, i had to take my right hand off the keyboard, move it to the mouse, click on the google toolbar, move my hand back to the keyboard, and enter my search phrase, then hit enter, i'd be so inefficient compared to how i am now.
someone mentioned searching highlighted words. that may be nice a nice feature, but i'd prefer type ahead find. just type the word i want, and keep on hitting ctrl+g. no need to use the mouse at all. it's not as pretty nor as simple to use as google's, but it gets the job done.
recently i changed my default search engine to A9. that was because i had recently made a purchase from amazon and my pi/2 discount disappeared. though 1.57% off isn't much, as a bargain hunter, it hurts me to not be able to save every penny i can, and it can take from 24hrs to 3 weeks after you start to use A9 again before the pi/2 discount returns. so as a precaution i switched over to A9 so it won't happen next time.
to my surprise, A9 results were very close to google's on the things i searched for and i actually got what i need from A9 just as i would have in google. so now A9 has officially become my default CTRL+K.
but i didn't get rid of google. it just takes 2 more key strokes. i made google a keyword and now all i have to do is:
CTRL+L
g keywords
ENTER
and google will work as if i did:
CTRL+K
keywords
ENTER
About time we got the REST of the functionality. (Score:4, Informative)
We already have this (Score:3, Informative)
nice feature but.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Simpsons did it! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Wait just a dog gone second (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wait a second: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Wait a second: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wait a second: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wait a second: (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Wait a second: (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wait a second: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wait a second: (Score:3, Interesting)
The lack of google toolbar was one of the things which kept me using IE for the longest time, until googlebar came along. If you think that search is all the google toolbar does, you really haven't used it.
Re:Wait a second: (Score:2)
Re:Wait a second: (Score:3, Informative)
Spellcheck your posts
Autolink addresses to maps
Blog This!
Re:Wait a second: (Score:4, Insightful)
Why release Linux when we already have Windows?
Why release MSN Messenger when we already have ICQ?
Why release an iRiver when we already have an iPod?
Why release a Mustang when we have a Corvette?
It is all about choice. The automotive world is not the only place where this is a good thing...
Re:WHAT?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Do I.
Re:WHAT?!? (Score:2)
Who the fuck says "in-built"?????????
The dictionary writers? [answers.com]
Re:WHAT?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Yoda.
Re:The only reason... (Score:2)
Re:Google Bars (Score:2)
Because the slashdot editors had a feeling it would annoy you.
Re:feeling lucky (Score:2)