Official Google Toolbar now available for Mozilla Firefox

[Andrew T.]

The official Google Toolbar, previously available only for Microsoft Internet Explorer, is now available in beta form for Mozilla Firefox as well.



The Google Toolbar for Firefox appears to closely duplicate the features of its Internet Explorer counterpart, except of course the Popup Blocker which is a feature present in Firefox to begin with.

This is interesting news, not only because other websites like Yahoo! have recently began to offer Firefox-compatible toolbars of their own as well, but because the Google Toolbar in particular had been unofficially cloned for Mozilla (suite and Firefox) as the Googlebar months before.

But...

• Windows XP/2000 SP3+, Mac OS X 10.2+, or Red Hat Linux 8.0+
• Firefox 1.0+

(Note to anyone curious: It is possible to attempt installing the Google Toolbar on Windows 9x, but a script error appears when Mozilla Firefox starts and the toolbar itself will be nonfunctional.)

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win95; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4

[Antony]

Thanks for the good news. Are there Google Toolbar for Safari?

But...

• Windows XP/2000 SP3+, Mac OS X 10.2+, or Red Hat Linux 8.0+
• Firefox 1.0+

it's surprise to see that Mac OS X platform is also supported.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/412 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/412

[Antony]

Hmm, it seems to be same as the Google Toolbar for MSIE.


Problem number 1: The search field box is very weird. It clearly does not comply with Apple's Human Interface Guideline. (please see the screenshot below)

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041103 Firefox/1.0RC2

[Antony]

Tried to install it in Netscape 8, it does not work

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20050603 Netscape/8.0.2

[beanboy89]

It also looks like Google has introduced two other extensions for Mozilla Firefox other than the Google Toolbar.

• Google Send to Phone which allows users to send text messages to mobile phone users.
• Google Suggest which adds a Google Suggest-like search field to Firefox.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.8b2) Gecko/20050704 SeaMonkey/1.0a (djeter)

[Antony]

Cool.

If you remember the news regarding Mozilla Firefox's main developer Ben Goodger works for Google (reference)

This could be one of the main reason we now have Firefox toolbars from Google.

(Note: This post indicates my speculation only.)

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/412 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/412

[Antony]

Google Toolbar is now hosted in Mozilla Update? https://addons.mozilla.org/google/google_toolbar.html

So you don't need to allow "google.com" website to add anything to your Firefox? (addons.mozilla.org is in the default allowed list)

This is an unfair advantage for Google Toolbar.

I wonder if Mozilla Update would provide similar "convenience" for Yahoo!, MSN or any other competitors (if they have similar toolbars.)

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/412 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/412

[Antony]

This Google Toolbar is now in official final version.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/412.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/412.5

[Mandrake]

Google Toolbar is now hosted in Mozilla Update? https://addons.mozilla.org/google/google_toolbar.html

So you don't need to allow "google.com" website to add anything to your Firefox? (addons.mozilla.org is in the default allowed list)

This is an unfair advantage for Google Toolbar.

I wonder if Mozilla Update would provide similar "convenience" for Yahoo!, MSN or any other competitors (if they have similar toolbars.)

It is an advantage, but the Mozilla Foundation does get a substantial amount of funding from Google in return for having Google set as the default, and preferred, search engine in Firefox.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b5) Gecko/20050925 Hypnophoenix Firefox/1.4

[James]

Would it ever been seen as either conceivable or advantageous for Google to purchase FF/TB outright and develop their own browser suite? I'm sure you remember the hopes some had back a few years ago that IBM or Sun or some company would purchase the failing Netscape. Is it even a remote possibility? Would it be desireable?

UserAgent: Opera/8.50 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en)

[DJGM]

There was a report last year that Google was to acquire the Mozilla Foundation.

It was an (ever so slightly obvious) April Fools joke!

I wonder if Mozilla Update would provide similar "convenience" for Yahoo!, MSN
or any other competitors (if they have similar toolbars.)

The day that Microsoft produce any sort of toolbar or other extension for Mozilla Firefox, is the day
that Beelzebub starts wearing woolly sweaters and says, "Brrr, it's getting a bit cold down here!"

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050910 SeaMonkey/1.0a

[north450]

The official Google Toolbar, previously available only for Microsoft Internet Explorer, is now available in beta form for Mozilla Firefox as well.



The Google Toolbar for Firefox appears to closely duplicate the features of its Internet Explorer counterpart, except of course the Popup Blocker which is a feature present in Firefox to begin with.

This is interesting news, not only because other websites like Yahoo! have recently began to offer Firefox-compatible toolbars of their own as well, but because the Google Toolbar in particular had been unofficially cloned for Mozilla (suite and Firefox) as the Googlebar months before.

But...

• Windows XP/2000 SP3+, Mac OS X 10.2+, or Red Hat Linux 8.0+
• Firefox 1.0+

(Note to anyone curious: It is possible to attempt installing the Google Toolbar on Windows 9x, but a script error appears when Mozilla Firefox starts and the toolbar itself will be nonfunctional.)

will it work for windows98se

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; en) Opera 8.50