"Enhance Your Web Surfing with the Right Toolbar"
By Merle
Have you ever wanted to do research on a topic and
didn't feel like going to a specific search engine
to do it? Well, you don't have to. If you download
a "search toolbar," you can actually perform research
from wherever you are online and do some other
pretty cool things depending on which one you may be using.
Most of the major search engines offer "free search
toolbars" for download, to enhance your surfing
experience and make tracking down information a snap.
You need to keep in mind that most toolbars will only
work in Internet Explorer 5.0 and above.
Let's review some of the most popular bars available
for download:
1) Google: http://toolbar.google.com
The king of search engines, Google offers up a superb
toolbar and my personal favorite. The latest version
contains a pop up blocker, a mechanism to fill out
online forms with one click, a way to check the page
rank of any site you may be visiting and more. Since
Google also bought Blogger.com, members of that free
service can also post to their personal Blogs with a
click on the toolbar.
2) Yahoo: http://companion.yahoo.com
With this you can bookmark your favorite websites,
search the web, peruse yellow pages and get notified
of new Yahoo email you may have. If you'd like to
refine your searches to just images or news, you
can do that or check on your favorite stock quotes.
Click the included yellow marker and instantly
highlight the search words on any web page you're
presently visiting.
3) Hotbot: http://www.hotbot.com/tools/
Hotbot allows you to search over 200 search sites
including Hotbot itself. This toolbar installs itself
into your windows task bar (unlike the others, which
attach themselves to your browser).
4) Alexa: http://www.alexatoolbar.com
Rated by CNET Editors as a top pick download, it
contains a popup stopper and combines Google search
results with Alexa information. Search Amazon for
products, check news and stocks, find out a site's
traffic ranking, find similar sites and use their
handy "tell a friend" to inform your pals of
great websites -- all with just a click. This is a
great one for online marketers to research your
competition. Use the "wayback machine" to view
archived versions of any website you're visiting.
5)Altavista: http://www.altavista.com/toolbar
This toolbar allows you to search within Altavista
or within a particular site you're visiting. In
addition to its built-in popup blocker news & image
search and weather & zip code finder, this one will
translate text or web pages into 10 different languages.
6) Teoma http://sp.ask.com/docs/teoma/toolbar/
Search Teoma from any web page. Includes a built-in
highlighter that highlights your search terms as they
appear on the page. Dictionary and page email functions
are built right in. This toolbar is dynamically
upgradeable as new versions become available.
7) Ask Jeeves: http://sp.ask.com/docs/toolbar/
Search Ask Jeeves from anywhere on the web. Use
the built-in "kid friendly" search function to find
sites suitable for children. Get financial info,
weather, news, search for local events or get a
map of any location in the U.S. Also includes
email this web page to a friend function.
As you can see, your options for a toolbar are
pretty impressive. But which one should you use?
That depends on which search engine is your favorite.
Most of them offer similar features and with the
inclusion of popup blocking, that's one less piece
of software you need to have on your machine.
There are also toolbars served up by "Meta Search
Engines." Meta engines do not maintain their own
database, they actually query other major search
engines for their displayed results. So if you use
one of these toolbars you'll actually be doing a
search across several different search engines at
one time.
Let's look at a few:
1) Trellian: http://www.trellian.com/tooblar/index.html
Search across all major search engines such as: Alta
Vista, Fast, Google, Inktomi, Overture, Teoma and
more. Includes a popup killer, spellchecker, and
is a handy tool for anyone doing search engine
optimization.
2) Dogpile: http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/tbar/
Queries 13 major search engines including Google,
AllTheWeb, Inktomi, Ask Jeeves, Overture and more.
Includes image search, stock quotes, weather, news
and much more.
3) Groowe: http://www.Groowe.com
Search across Yahoo, Google, Teoma, AllTheWeb, MSN
and others. Perform specialized searches, such as
news or images.
4) Ultrabar: http://www.UltraBar.com
Search across multiple search engines. Ability to
highlight search terms within the page you are
visiting. If you'd like a customizable version of
this toolbar that you can give away from your own
site. Add your own menu items, icon and additional
search engines. This could be used as a great promo
item for your site and pricing starts at only $89.00.
As you can see, you have many choices when it comes
to browser toolbars. By choosing wisely, you'll have
a desktop tool that will help you be more efficient
and perform smarter web searches -- and with a price
tag of free, that's a terrific bargain!
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