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Internet: Browser toolbars offer benefits, pitfalls |
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by Kim Komando
Free toolbars that integrate with your Web browser speed up searches, block annoying pop-up ads and complete online forms automatically. But before you download and install any toolbar, be careful. Many toolbars offered for free come with a big catch — more advertising infiltrating your computer.
The search site Google offers one of the most popular free toolbars (http://toolbar.google.com). It appears below the address bar in Internet Explorer. A text box on the toolbar allows you to search Google without having to visit its home page. You also can use the toolbar to restrict your search to pages located in a specific country, search only within the pages of a site and highlight search terms on a page.
The Google Toolbar also includes a pop-up stopper that's smart enough to block unwanted ads and display important content. If you click a link that opens a pop-up, the Google Toolbar displays it because you explicitly requested it. Most pop-up killers include this feature, but you have to request the pop-up by clicking the link while holding a modifier key, such as the CTRL key.
The AutoFill button is another convenience. You enter your name and address in AutoFill. When an online form requires that information, AutoFill enters it. You also can put your credit card information in AutoFill and protect it with a password. When shopping online, you enter the password, and the credit card information is entered automatically.
Officially, the Google Toolbar is only available for Microsoft's Internet Explorer. However, volunteers working on the Mozilla project have created a Google Toolbar for Netscape 7 (http://googlebar.mozdev.org).
The search site AltaVista also has a free toolbar (www.altavista.com/toolbar) but it needs work. For instance, its pop-up stopper does a good job of stopping pop-ups, but it continued to block them even when the blocking feature was turned off.
AltaVista offers an information button, which includes weather reports, a conversion chart and times for various places. However, it operated inconsistently. For instance, I used the information button to check the time in Charlotte, N.C. It worked once, but two other times, it displayed search listings that didn't have anything to do with the time.
Ditto on checking the weather in Phoenix. And when I used the conversion feature to convert pounds to other measures, the info button twice returned listings for religious conversions. The correct information appeared only once.
Yahoo! also has a toolbar, called Yahoo! Companion (http://com panion.yahoo.com). It's very simple, replicating links to popular features on Yahoo!'s home page.
The Google, AltaVista and Yahoo! toolbars are not available for the Mac, but Apple's OS X operating system includes Sherlock, a search engine with additional features, such as a translator and dictionary. If you need more, try Watson ($29, www.karelia.com/watson). It has a number of features, including a weather forecast, TV listings and shopping through PriceGrabber (www.pricegrabber.com).
As you are looking at toolbars, watch for spyware (or adware, if you prefer). These are programs that track your Internet activities and feed advertising tailored to your interests.
The Google Toolbar tracks every site you visit for its Page Rank feature, which calculates the popularity of sites. Some people might think this is spyware, but it isn't because this feature can be turned off easily.
Some toolbars aren't as friendly as Google's. They'll change your default home page and search engine without consulting you, and they'll clutter your computer with advertising. A classic example is Xupiter, which reportedly can download its own updates and advertising pop-ups.
Before you install a toolbar, do your homework. Check to see if the toolbar is listed as spyware at Spychecker (www.spychecker.com) or Pest Patrol (www.pestpatrol.com).
With reporting by Ed Foster.
usatech
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