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Google Toolbar

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 95.34.181.62 (talk) at 19:26, 5 May 2010 (Removed question about reference for criticism of Autolink, as there are two references to it at the end of the section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Google Toolbar
Developer(s)Google
Stable release
6.5.405.1632 (Internet Explorer)
7.1.20100408Wb1 (Firefox) / April 14, 2010 (Internet Explorer)
April 14, 2010 (Firefox)
Operating systemMicrosoft Windows
Mac OS X
Linux
TypeToolbar
LicenseProprietary freeware
Websitetoolbar.google.com

Google Toolbar is an Internet browser toolbar available for Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

Features

File:Google Toolbar in Firefox screenshot.png
Google Toolbar in Firefox

Google toolbar resides above the browser's tab bar and provides a search box to carry out web searches. Users can login into their Gmail accounts and access their emails, saved bookmarks and web history. It has tools such as AutoLink, AutoFill, translation, spell checker common to all browsers, while pop-up blocker and word finder are restricted to Internet Explorer [1]. Google toolbar is often distributed through product bundling with a primary download.

Sidewiki

Google Sidewiki was launched on September 23, 2009.[2] It allows users to make comments, which are visible to the public, on any web page. Google uses ranking algorithms to determine comment relevancy and usefulness using criteria such as users voting up and down a comment, and past user's contributions. Sidewiki is currently available for Internet Explorer and Firefox through Google toolbar, and the Google Chrome browser through an add-on. For other browsers, like Safari, it is available as a bookmarklet.

Web site owners cannot control Sidewiki comments[3], and there is currently no way for a web site to opt out of Sidewiki as of April 2010.[4]

My Location

My Location is a geolocation service which uses the location of WiFi access points to determine the toolbar user's location[5]. This location is used to optimize search results based on where the user is located[5]. Google Toolbar can also provide the geolocation data to third-party websites[5] through the W3C Geolocation API.

Google toolbar was criticized when the AutoLink feature was added to the toolbar because this new feature directed users to pre-selected commercial websites such as Amazon.com and Google maps. For example, if it finds a book's ISBN number on a webpage, it provides a link to Amazon's product page for the particular book. Google said that the feature "adds useful links" and "none of the companies which received AutoLinks had paid for the service".[6][7]

Privacy

Google Watch has raised concerns about Google Toolbar's possible threats to privacy, such as tracking of browsing patterns, automatic installation of updates without the user's knowledge, and a privacy policy that can be revised without notice.[8] The toolbar does not track personally identifiable surfing activities of the end user unless advanced features such as PageRank are specifically enabled by the user.[9] It does track "anonymous" statistics, which can reveal a lot of information when correlated with other data, although similar criticisms could be made of Google's online search engine.[10]

Google Compute

Google Compute was a separately downloadable add-on for the Google Toolbar which allowed participation in a distributed computing project to help scientific research. It started on a limited basis in March 2002[11] and ended in October 2005.[12] [13]

Google Compute enabled a user's computer to help solve challenging scientific problems when the computer would otherwise be idle. When one enabled Google Compute, the computer downloaded a small piece of a large research problem and performed calculations on it that were then included with results from thousands of other computers. Google Compute was only available for the English language version of the Google Toolbar.[14]

The effort's first and only contribution was to Folding@home, a non-profit endeavor to model the process of protein folding in order to better understand and cure many different diseases. The Google Compute homepage recommends that users wishing to continue contributions to the project download the official Folding@home client.

Inoperability with ISP-based DNS hijacking

A number of Internet Service Providers have implemented DNS hijacking with the purpose of redirecting users to advertisements whenever they mistype a URL in a browser. Where an ISP has implemented this configuration, it interferes with some functionality of the Google Toolbar.

Similar Toolbars

See also

Yoono Care2

References

  1. ^ "Google Toolbar Features". Google. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
  2. ^ "Help and learn from others as you browse the web: Google Sidewiki". Google. 23 September 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-23.
  3. ^ Andrew Keen. "Sidewiki: Google colonial sideswipe". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2009-12-12.
  4. ^ "How do webmasters opt out of sidewiki?". Retrieved 2010-02-24.
  5. ^ a b c http://www.google.com/support/toolbar/bin/answer.py?hl=en-uk&answer=166104
  6. ^ "Google Toolbar Autolink Controversy: Much Ado about Nothing?". Digital Home. 22 February 2005. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
  7. ^ Google's new toolbar: Now more evil than ever
  8. ^ "Does Wesley's Google Toolbar Invade Your Privacy ? Not Really". TechPluto. 16 May 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-17.
  9. ^ Is Google too powerful? by Bill Thompson, BBC News, 2/21/2003
  10. ^ Olsen, Stefanie (March 27, 2003). "Google tests distributed computing". CNet News.
  11. ^ "Support center". Folding@Home. "The Google compute program has ended."
  12. ^ "Is Google quitting the project?". Folding Community. October 22, 2005.
  13. ^ Shankland, Stephen (March 22, 2002). "Google takes on supercomputing". CNet News.
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