Google Toolbar vs. Yahoo Toolbar

Search Toolbars

The search stars, Google and Yahoo!, have launched toolbars for their browsers. These toolbars are simple browser plug-ins that increase functionality such as search fields, filling forms, linking popular websites, detecting malware, etc…

Apart from this, they serve as a way to collect marketing statistics by various anonymous companies. These toolbars also strengthen brands by displaying their details in the browser window. Unfortunately, many times, these toolbars also decrease the performance of the browser and create compatibility issues.

The latest versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox have a built-in search toolbar. This has led to a slightly decreased use of other toolbars. Many times, these toolbars force the user to use their own allied search engine rather than the users chosen one.

Yahoo! Toolbar

Comparing Google Toolbar vs. Yahoo Toolbar - The Yahoo! Toolbar is a free and easy-to-use toolbar that is designed to work with a registered Yahoo! account and is aimed to work with a Yahoo! username for email, IM, and other services.

The toolbar gives instant and quick access to email and other secure features. While typing in the search toolbar, a dropdown list appears and gives suggestions. Moreover, these search terms can be highlighted in any one single colour. Other single click buttons on the toolbar take you to services of Norton Anti–Virus, Briefcase, Games, News, etc. The toolbar can store all bookmarks.

Irrespective of its advantages, this toolbar works well only when the user is an active Yahoo! service user. The user can customize the toolbar by adding or deleting buttons that he/she would like to see on the toolbar layout. The pop-up blocker works decently well in deleting almost all ads. The toolbar was easy to install and uninstall. Best of all, it did not slow down the performance of the browser.

Google Toolbar

Comparing the Google Toolbar vs. Yahoo Toolbar - The Google Toolbar is a set of features that improve a users browsing experience by making the search ability faster and convenient. The toolbar includes features like the Google search window, pop-up blocker, translator, spell checker, map tool, etc. The toolbar layout also includes links to Google services like the Google News, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Scholar, etc. The toolbar is completely customizable and users can add or delete features that they like.

An effective PageRank features come with the Google toolbar. This feature automatically sends back information about the URL to Google servers. However, this feature can be disabled during the installation. The feature also allows the user to know the page rank of the page they are on and of the other websites that are linked to it.

The best thing about the Google toolbar is that it is a generic tool rather than one that was built specifically for itself and its own features. Though there are tabs for Google features on the toolbar layout, many useful features are available that can be used generally without any relation to Google.

An example of this is of the auto-form filling feature that fills form automatically. Once a particular form has been filled, the toolbar saves the information and automatically fills it the next time the user goes on the page.

The toolbar has a guess feature when the user searches for keywords. The toolbar gives keyword suggestions while the user types in the search request. The toolbar also features many SEO and developer tools.

For more information on how to use Google Toolbar, refer here.

Yahoo Toolbar vs. Google Toolbar

Bookmarks:

- The Google Toolbar cannot import or export bookmarks.

- The Yahoo! Toolbar cannot tag bookmarks.

Pop-up Blocker:

- The Google Toolbar works decently well. However, it misses certain pop-ups.

- The Yahoo! Toolbar somehow manages to block important pop-ups.

Languages:

- The Google Toolbar translates non-English pages to English and vice-versa, translates single words in many languages, and allows spell checking.

- The Yahoo! Toolbar translates information by linking to a page on Yahoo!.

Communication Pages:

- The Google Toolbar has an email page, blog page, IM page, and SMS page.

- The Yahoo! Toolbar has an email page, and IM page.

Mail:

- The Google Toolbar has the option of Search mail or go to Gmail.

- The Yahoo! Toolbar has the option of Yahoo! Mail, compose mail, and check mail.

Other Services:

- The Google Toolbar does not promote many services. For example, the Google toolbar does not allow viewing of friend contacts or group lists.

- The Yahoo! Toolbar has a tab for all its services along with important links. For example, the News tab has a link to the latest headlines.

Overall:

- The Google Toolbar has adopted account integration from Yahoo but has not extended much. It remains a basic search toolbar. However, Google continues to make developments as we speak. Let us, wait and watch for further improvements.

- The Yahoo! Toolbar has a default layout that is more jumbled compared to Google. Yahoo! plans to create a more clutter-free and Google like toolbar layout in the future.

For a detailed comparison of these and more search toolbars, read here.