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Complete overview of major search engine toolbars
Many search engines now offer web browser toolbars so that
you can instantly use their search engines whenever you have
your browser window open.
The search engine toolbars search the World Wide Web but
they also offer additional useful features, for example there
are pop-up window blockers, dictionary and stock quote lookup
tools, translation features and much more.
The most popular toolbar is the Google toolbar. However,
other search engine toolbars offer features which the Google
toolbar doesn't, for example searching for mobile phone ringtones,
getting movie showtimes or searching the Yellow Pages.
If you want, you can install several search engine toolbars
at once in order to combine their features and to search different
search engines. Make sure that you carefully read the terms
and conditions of the toolbars because some of them record
your surfing behavior.
Here's a complete list of the currently available major search
engine toolbars:
Alexa toolbar
- Searches the Google search engine.
- Tools: pop-up window blocker, dictionary, thesaurus, news
search, stock quotes
- Web page features: searches the currently displayed web
page; displays traffic information, contact information
and user reviews for the current web site; displays related
links for the current web site; emails web page to a friend;
shows archived versions of the current web page so that
you can see how the web site looked like years ago
- Requires Internet Explorer 5.0+
- Download
AltaVista toolbar
- Searches the AltaVista search engine.
- Tools: pop-up window blocker, news search, image search,
multimedia search, dictionary, weather, area code search,
zip code search, currency exchange, conversion tool, global
time
- Web page features: searches the current web page, searches
the current web site, highlights search terms on the web
page
- Special: The AltaVista toolbar is available in English,
French, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish.
- Requires Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP, Internet Explorer
5.0+
- Download
Ask Jeeves toolbar
- Searches the Ask Jeeves search engine and the Ask Jeeves
Kids search engine.
- Tools: news search, dictionary lookup, stock quotes, weather,
events search, USA map
- Web page features: zooms the current web page, highlights
search terms on the web page, emails web page to a friend
- Requires Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP, Internet Explorer 5.0+
- Download
Dogpile toolbar
- Meta-searches 13 search engines, including Google, AllTheWeb,
Inktomi, Ask Jeeves, Overture and Teoma.
- Tools: image search, news search, shopping search, multimedia
search, file search, Yellow Pages, White Pages, weather,
maps, stock quotes, public records, horoscopes, dictionary,
thesaurus, acronym finder
- Web page features: highlights search terms on the web
page, emails web page to a friend
- Requires Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP, Internet Explorer 5.01+
- Download
Google toolbar
- Searches the Google search engine, the Google directory
and lets you restrict searches to pages located in a specific
country.
- Tools: pop-up window blocker, news search, image search,
quickly fills in forms, adds links to a Blogger.com weblog,
newsgroup search, dictionary, displays the Google PageRank
score
- Web page features: highlights search terms on the web
page, shows a cached version of the web page, finds similar
pages, displays pages that link to the current page and
searches within the pages of the current web site
- Requires Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP, IE 5.0+ (the pop-up
window blocker requires Internet Explorer 5.5 or later)
- Download
HotBot deskbar
- Searches Google, HotBot, Lycos, Ask Jeeves, Ebay, Amazon,
Tucows and more than 200 other web sites. Unlike the other
search engine toolbars, the HotBot deskbar installs into
the Windows task bar.
- Tools: dictionary, thesaurus, weather, maps, stock quotes,
calculator
- Requires Windows (no other requirements specified)
- Download
Lycos.de toolbar
- Searches the Lycos.de search engine.
- Allows you to create your own MyLycos page with individual
contents.
- Special: It's only available in German.
Requires Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP, Internet Explorer
5.5+
- Download
Mini Jeeves toolbar (UK)
- Searches the Ask Jeeves UK search engine and provides
quick access to the Ask Jeeves shopping channel and the
travel channel.
- Tools: dictionary, thesaurus, finds mobil phone ringtones
and icons
- Web page features: highlights search terms on the web
page, emails web page to a friend
- Requires Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP, Internet Explorer 5.0+
- Download
Teoma search bar
- Searches the Teoma search engine
- Tools: dictionary Web page features: highlights search
terms on the web page, emails web page to a friend
- Requires Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP, Internet Explorer 5.0+
- Download
Yahoo companion
- Searches the Yahoo directory.
- Tools: accesses Yahoo Mail, saves your bookmarks online,
news search, image search, Yellow Pages search, address
book, maps, dictionary, stock quotes, movie showtimes
- Web page features: highlight search terms on the web page
- Requires Internet Explorer 4.0+
- Download
All toolbars described above (except for the HotBot toolbar)
are only available for Internet Explorer browsers. If you
use Netscape 7, Mozilla or Mozilla Firebird, you might want
to try the un-official
Google toolbar. If you use an Apple Macintosh, you might
want to try this
one.
AllTheWeb is the only major search engine that doesn't offer
its own toolbar yet. However, AllTheWeb offers various
other tools for Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla and
Opera browsers.
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