RSSNew Google Toolbar wants to be your next 'Start' button
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published June 10, 2009, 4:25 PM
The latest version of the Google Toolbar, now on version 6 for Microsoft Internet Explorer, remains the most convenient way to expedite searches through the Internet's most versatile search engine. But with each successive version, this one being no exception, Google tries to be a little more "in your face."
With changes coming to the taskbar in Windows 7, users are likely to arrange their running applications differently. Google appears to be taking advantage of this fact with the introduction of its own taskbar button that appears after you install Google Toolbar 6 for IE8. On many Win7 setups, including ours where we've tilted the taskbar vertically, the Google logo now situates itself right alongside Microsoft's, as if to say, "I'm here too."
And what is it there to do? Believe it or not, it can launch applications, in its dual role as an alternate Start button for Windows. Want to run Excel, for instance? Click on the Google button, type excel, then select the icon. Granted, Excel comes up as #2 on Google's list of retrievals, right behind a Google online search for the word "excel."
As is customary for Google, you can "opt out" of this feature if it's not useful to you, or redundant, though you do it through the Google Toolbar in IE. Look for the wrench icon, click on it, and under Search, uncheck Show in Taskbar. There, you can also opt out of another interesting feature that helps make IE8 look and feel…a lot more like Google Chrome.
Before Microsoft refreshed IE7 to include some content in its newly created tabs, they were essentially blank, functionless entities (they still are, in the latest stable release of Firefox 3.0.10). In IE8, new tabs are much more useful, enabling you to reopen tabs you closed before or may have closed accidentally, and also (most importantly to Microsoft) launch one of IE8's new search accelerators -- miniature Web services that can be utilized in other Web pages.
Google would have you replace that feature with its menu of most visited Web sites, represented by snapshots from your most recent visit there. At least that's what's supposed to be shown; in our test of Google Toolbar 6 in IE8 running on Windows 7 RC, we couldn't visit any one site enough times for any site to be snapshot on this New Tab page. We also could not bookmark pages, either in IE8 or through Google's separate, online-supported bookmarks list, to make them appear in the Recent Bookmarks list on Toolbar 6. It would appear that Google has some work to do to make the new Toolbar function in Windows 7 once it's generally released this October.
With all this stuff we'd probably want to opt out of anyway, you may be wondering, why install Google Toolbar 6 in the first place? Having a replete search history, and being able to search videos or the patent database or Google News separately, are still common tasks for which shortcuts are much appreciated. Translating text between multiple languages quickly -- or even making an approximate guess of the translation -- is another very useful feature we tend to use every day. But that may be the point in the end: We use it every day now, without having upgraded to version 6. So our suggestion to Google may be to concentrate on Chrome as a tool for implementing changes to everyday work habits, and on Toolbar for refining the means by which users research information.
Actually the Google logo has been a part of the suite for a while, the only difference is that it used to be to the left of the notification icons while the taskbar sits horizontally. When you click it you get search/history/options etc. So the move to the what I call "task area" [the button beside your start button area] section I think is a natural progression for integration with Windows 7.
Mind you, I'm speaking from the pov of not having used 6 at all, so I could be wrong and it could be an immovable logo that really does just say "I'm here!"....but if it's not, then I don't think there's any harm or foul involved. It's evolution.
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|This toolbar is nearing the point of being pointless and a waste of system resources. In vista and Win 7 you can easily type "Excel" into the search/run box and it will launch Excel. If you don't like clicking on start to access the box, then add a "run box" gadget to your desktop.
I know people who use the google toolbar only because it has a pop-up blocker. They don't know that IE7/8/and FF all have built in blockers.
Does this toolbar require the use of Google search? If so, you will be indexing files with Google and the native Windows indexer. This sounds like a system killer.
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|Agreed.
Seems pretty pointless at the moment. I installed it to test it so I could comment on it knowledgeably, but have since uninstalled it. There's just no point to having it or we're just not being creative enough. ;)
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|Good to see Google is now paying BetaNews to write favorable articles.
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|"being able to search videos or the patent database or Google News separately" Have you heard of OpenSearch?
"Translating text between multiple languages quickly " Have you heard of bookmarklets?
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|No matter what, you've just got to be impressed with Google and Microsoft, the folk who changed the way we live our lives, unbelievable. Now as Bills' empire slowly sinks into the sunset another one takes its place. Google now has the best search engine, the best browser, heck it just about has the best everything, can't wait until they start making sports cars, I'd buy one.
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|Microsoft had record revenue and profits last year.
IBM had record revenue as well.
Google had record revenue.
You were saying?
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|FWIW:
It doesn't provide a list of installed applications, it doesn't provide a menu of any sort until you actually type a query.
If anything, this is a replacement for the search functionality in the "start" menu....though not nearly as functional. A "Start" Button replacement it is *definitely* not. The *only* feature it shares is the ability to search....and it doesn't even do that as well (It searches the "programs" folder of the start-menu....not the drive. Try using it to find a recently created XLS file...no luck).
Nice try, Scott, but how you figured this was a Start Button Replacement is beyond me. It *barely* resembles the start-menu's search functionality. So...just an off day, or are we trying to start a flame-war here?
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|i don't need google, or chrome. i use ie8 and bing... nonething else matters ;)
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|Have you read up on AdBlock, NoScript, and Nuke Anything Enhanced?
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|Of course not, he uses IE8 and he *likes* his exploits, thank you very much!
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|So MS gets sued for include IE....nobody wants to sue Google for trying to take over your OS or your privacy...I guess the Linux/Mac/Google fanboys have been so brainwashed...they can no longer see even if google does 'in your face' evil things....
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|Yes, Google is the new Microsoft, but it didn't quite achieve monopolistic position yet to be able to abuse it fully.
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|*laughing*
Overreact much?
This is *not* a forced download. You must explicitly download this software. It does not self-install It does not hide itself. It does not do *anything* unless *you* download and install it.
They can *only* "try and take over your OS" with *your* permission.
Do you think Rocketdock is trying to take over your system? StarDock's ObjectDock? These can launch your applications as well...and are also something you must download and install *yourself*. No?
Get a grip...
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|What scares me the most about this is how Google plants the toolbar install option with some downloadable programs and if you don't pay attention, like ALOT of people don't, Google is now going to be able to reach their prying eyes into things they shouldn't be able to. With their ability to hide tracking and spyware in the toolbar beyond the means of almost every spyware program, who's to say they won't eventually reach a highly sensitive document within a network, either home or work, that they have absolutely no business being able to reach? I live with a person who was one of the people who helped write the improved FEMA response to a disaster after hurricane Katrina. If that document had been compromised by Google's prying eyes before it was signed into law he could have been fired and the entire project could have imploded. Google has no need to be extending itself onto personal desktops beyond the browser, PERIOD!
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|"Google is now going to be able to reach their prying eyes into things they shouldn't be able to."
Citation? How does installing the toobar with default settings allow "prying eyes"?
"With their ability to hide tracking and spyware in the toolbar beyond the means of almost every spyware program, who's to say they won't eventually reach a highly sensitive document within a network, either home or work, that they have absolutely no business being able to reach?"
Again...their "pagerank" features and so-forth are *not* enabled by default. Your initial argument of users being stupid and just "next"ing everything they see prevents your very concern from being an issue...
"If that document had been compromised by Google's prying eyes before it was signed into law he could have been fired and the entire project could have imploded."
If... Wild speculation is never a good supporting argument.
"Google has no need to be extending itself onto personal desktops beyond the browser, PERIOD!"
Now you're dictating what type of products they can produce? Sorry, but that fully deserves a Bull_****ing-s***! What right do you have to impose *your* short-sighted, paranoid limitations on *anyone*? So Picasa, Google Earth...they have to stop allowing people to use them?
"Get a grip" doesn't even come close on this one. You need serious help for your control issues and your delusions of grandeur.
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|Apart from the fact that I despise toolbars on principle, nothing Google here thanks and it's gonna stay that way.
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|@pc_tool,
do you know how many applications try to install google toolbar as if it's doing as a service...one blind install and next thing you know there's a google updater service, google desktop and the toolbar...I very well know I am in control, but how many people are awake and alert while installing applications...?? If everyone were alert while installing applications, we wouldn't have a big spyware / malware plauge, do we ?
That's for people who were careless...
now how many people install and download google toolbar very much in control, not realizing how google caches your searches, your info...
and for people who think they know everything..like yourself...you get what you asked for..:)
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|"do you know how many applications try to install google toolbar as if it's doing as a service...one blind install and next thing you know there's a google updater service, google desktop and the toolbar...I very well know I am in control, but how many people are awake and alert while installing applications...??"
SSDD...
Your argument is the same as you made previously; completely irrelevant because the features and functionality you are complaining about are *NOT ENABLED BY DEFAULT*. As stated before, the very reasoning you give as to why it is a Bad Thing™ is the *same* reason that the functionality will never get enabled on their systems.
Clueless users who "next" everything are going to pass right by the checkbox for pagerank and "web enabled" personal desktop searching without ticking them on *because* they "next" everything, Your argument fails basic logic.
They won't be affected by the features if they don't enable them, and they don't enable them because they don't pay attention to what they are doing.
The *only* way these get enabled is by users who *explicitly* enable them.
So... I've said it now about 6 different ways now in multiple replies. Is it sinking in yet, or do I have to provide pictures?
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