How many people use the Google Toolbar? Out of those people how many use the extended functionality of it (anything other than basic searching)?
I never use the basic searching. I use it for the PR, the dmoz listing thing, the cached page, and the backlinks.
I use it occasionally; however, I use Netscape, so when I use the toolbar, it means I have to switch over to Explorer. Not an everyday occurrance, just when I want to see something like page rank.
What happened to SEOGuru's post? Eh. I use the toolbar's search area all the time. you can drag and drop text in there. I use the PR, the DMOZ, the Backlinks, from time to time I'll use Translate to English. I use the voting buttons, even though they probably don't do anything. I use the drop down to search Google images sometimes, I use the BlogThis button. The thing I use most is the text highlighter/go to keyword button. If I search something like 802.11g networks and I want to know how many times it is on the page I am at, I'll click on the highlighter and get a rough idea of the density. Or if there is one instance of a word I am looking for, I can click the word and BAM! the toolbar takes me to the word and highlights it for me. I can't surf as fast without the Google Toolbar.
I do not use it at all, I downloaded it about a year ago and took it off the same day, for some reason it SLOWED DOWN my surfing, has anyone else noticed the load the bar put on them? I have used the ALEXA toolbar, I like it because it gives a hell of a lot of related links. Now I have made major shit out of the fact that the spyware scanners (lavasoft adware and some of the others profile ALEXA but not GOOGLE toolbar) I have pressed Lavasoft on their forums on this issue. You can see the controversial thread at their forum, it got a hell of a lot of attention. They closed the thread when it got heated right away, so I hit a major nerve with them. My contention with them was that they were keeping Google out of the spyware profiles because of a conflict of interest. If you look on the Google recommended spyware industry standards page they list ADAWARE and SPYBOT at the bottom of the page, a clever move on Google's part, seems like a big bribe to me. "Lets send millions of customers to these spyware software makers so they never add us to the profile". I have a page on my website on this if anyone is interested.
Yeah, so you voted me down the tubes too, I know that Such Great Heights. You and VS conspired to get me banned, you voted my live linking down the tubes, thanks alot. Well if you dish it out, I guess you have to be able to take it. Glad you are posting SGH
I use it on my laptop for looking up PR, I do like the search box and use it alot. The pop-up blocker is a bonus.
I adore the pop-up blocking, pagranking, searching, text highlighting/searching and the quick news and dictionary.com links. I have also just started using "Search This Site" and the backlinks portion. Once I changed my ways and actually started using it, one feels more integrated with the interenet. It's difficult to teach a old dog new tricks, but when one finally get's used to it.... nice!
http://www.searchwars.squarespace.com/display/ShowPage?moduleId=16431 In the above page you will find a link for a PC Magazine article on the toolbar, Find the paragraph "are toolbars and Gmail spyware" and you will find the PC Magizine article on the Google toolbar. Sorry the link is not live, the membership here has bannished me to the burning hell of no live links, so you will have to cut and paste the link to read the article.
Does anyone here use Mozilla? Built-in almost everything the Google Toolbar does except, of course, the proprietary Google stuff. But I can get PR online elsewhere.
I use it with the extra Search UK button. Also for PR, backlinks, cached snapshots, blocking pop ups and I find the on page search with your search KW topright very handy to jump to the action.
I use mozilla, but only occasionally. I generally use IE just because that's what most of my visitors will be using, plus I can see PR/etc with the toolbar from google and alexa
I use the toolbar all the time mainly to search google .. pr and the pop-up blocking is a plus. As for the spyware bit ... the toolbar does ask if you want to send info to google when u r installing it ... if you said no and it still sent info i would be very surprised and concerned.
When enabled to show the Page Rank Gauge they know every page view while you surf. They use the information (to improve your surfing and the search engine) to target relevant ads back at users and to give Google real time information as to what sites are being clicked on. I would think that they also use this data to improve Page Rank. Some think Page Rank is a outdated technology. But Google says that it is the foundation of the search engine ALGO's. So if they keep folks looking at Page Rank, they also keep the toolbar information collection going.
Voted you down the tubes? how? VS and I didn't conspire to get you anything. You crazy. I guess your right ... so I better be able to take it. You got me good. Thanks.
Among the other reasons mentioned so far, I use the Google Toolbar to run Google Compute which is a darn good cause in my book. alek