http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Whs0IpK_g
"The New Google Toolbar Is Coming To Town"

Not yet released, but should be soon.
http://toolbar.google.com/

It doesn't take a genius to work out that you can get it from here:

http://toolbar.google.com/T5/

:-)

What about FF :-(I refuse to use IE

Soon, I hope

Agree with James!

Let's see these new features in FF as well.

I have to put my foot in my mouth er.. I mean put my foot down and stand up for IE. While I don't like Microsoft, IE is a lot better then people portray it to be and FF has it's issues. (It's the same thing with Mac and PC.)

Lay off of the butter when talking about FF.

I'd like to have IE7's rendering engine and IE6's interface.

I'd like to have safari with firefox's expandability (and i know about greasekit/creammonkey, but that's mac only)

I've always wondered how Google justifies the pop-up blocker in the Toolbar, since obscuring advertising breaks the TOS for many websites.

What if one day, by applying the same logic they probably use with the pop up blocker, they begin blocking "annoying, irrelevant" text link advertising that is not served by Google?

I don't think that Firefox Toolbar production will ever speed up to Internet Explorer. It's always IE first.

<<I've always wondered how Google justifies the pop-up blocker in the Toolbar, since obscuring advertising breaks the TOS for many websites.>>

"Lost in a jungle of annoying pop-up ads? Toolbar's pop-up blocker keeps your screen free and clear."

I think all browsers and most search toolbars have protection against pop-ups. Users found them annoying and the technology was there to help. Now browsers/toolbars add anti-phishing and anti-malware protection.

What I don't understand is why Google Toolbar includes a pop-up blocker in IE7, but not in Firefox. "The Google Toolbar for Firefox doesn't include the Popup Blocker because a popup blocker is already built in to your Firefox browser." (http://www.google.com/support/firefox/bin/answer.py?answer=21033&query=pop-up&topic=&type=) But IE7 also has a pop-up blocker.

Here's the official announcement:

http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/annc/20071212_toolbar.html

Ionut, I know that pop-up blockers are common for toolbars and browsers now. However, it does seem hypocritical that a company that makes money on web advertising would limit that type of ads another company is allowed to serve.

Google has also decided that paid text links and pay-per-post advertising is wrong. But wrong for who – the advertiser, the publisher, or the user? What matters to Google is that it's wrong for their search engine, which relies on links between pages to determine relevance.

I think it's wrong for a near monopoly sized company to use their position on the marketplace to block or discourage competitors.

I think you're mixing two different things: pop-ups are annoying and everybody hates them (that's about user experience), paid links manipulate search engine rankings (that's about search quality). If enough people want this feature, I don't see why Google Toolbar wouldn't include an ad blocker (or content blocker like in Opera).

Ionut, I think Hashim may refer to the legal aspect of breaking the ToS, and Google building a case against itself if it ever wants to defend against e.g. AdSense-blockers... after all, many people may find AdSense annoying as well.

This is pretty strange. Most browsers have options to disable JavaScript, plug-ins (like Flash), animated GIFs. There are also text browsers, mobile browsers that don't support JavaScript/Flash. Does this mean these browsers break "the TOS for many websites"?

What about google toolbar for Safari (mac)?

http://blogoscoped.com/forum/118104.html#id118105
Lol, I didn't watch the video. (woke up from a 5-hour sleep, half conscious, 2 mins before leaving for school, etc...)

The thing I want the most is the ability to access my synced bookmarks online.

I wonder how long until browser sync and toolbar become one – this release certainly seems to be trending in that direction

> Does this mean these browsers
> break "the TOS for many websites"?

I'm no lawyer... I don't even know if "auto-agreements" ("when you use our website you agree to our ToS" without needing any opt-in) have any legal grounds... the question of what you may or may not legally/ ethically do to a website is completely blurred I think. HTML by design was meant to allow flexible interpretation by all kinds od devices; it just says "thís is a header of this or that importance, render however you will (including text to speech)."

And e.g. while ad-blockers are accepted by many, how would people feel about an "ad-replacer," let's say the Google Toolbar v7.5 will replace all 125x125 pixel square ads on websites with their own AdSense ads of the same size (revenues going straight to Google)? People would probably lynch Google, right?

The one feature that stood out for me is the "Roaming" feature. For Firefox users, check out the Google Browser Sync add-on. This is Google-developed and lets you sync your bookmarks, cookies, etc. to Google's servers. Then, if you install Firefox on another computer, just install the add-on, login, and sync, and your bookmarks and cookies are restored. Any changes on one reflect on the other. It's great for keeping work and home Firefox installs synced.

I've just realised that the "Find" feature of Google Toolbar makes IE6's find functionality work the same as the one in Firefox. Much better when you press Ctrl+F.