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 and 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: AltaVista,
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. You can build
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 fr'ee, that's a terrific
bargain!
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About The Author
Merle operates www.EzineAdAuction.com
"Where some of
the BEST Deals in Ezine Advertising are Made". Buy &
Sell Ezine Ads in a live auction setting!