At 12 am Pacific time today (02/10/05), Yahoo released the Yahoo Toolbar designed for the Firefox browser and the reaction as been quite positive.
Yahoo’s release marks the first independently designed multi-purpose toolbar designed for Mozilla’s news making browser. As Firefox’s market share continues to increase, more users are available to welcome utilities like Yahoo’s toolbar. And welcome it they did.
Essentially, the Yahoo Toolbar gives Firefox users a wide variety of Yahoo.com features and controls, including search and add RSS. However, the toolbar did have one noticeable absence from the list of features available: the non-support of Anti-Spy, Yahoo’s integrated (into the Windows OS toolbar) anti-spyware tool.
When you consider CNet’s article about spyware developers targeting Firefox, the more antispyware, the better.
Nevertheless, reaction to the Yahoo Toolbar was encouraging. A quick glance at the feedback section for Yahoo’s blog entry concerning the launch finds statements like:
It’s about time!
Finally — this rocks!
Awesome
Nice to see interest
A very nice surprise
Of course, no Firefox thread is complete without an obligatory IE bash, but even that was kept to a minimum.
Considering the positive publicity Firefox has received since its launch, developing utilities which improve overall user experience will always be welcome. A comment from Yahoo’s blog sums these feelings up, while partially revealing future Firefox/Yahoo goals, by saying:
“The support and community that continues to grow around Firefox is amazing and we’re proud to be part of it. In fact, the Yahoo! Toolbar Beta is just one of many Firefox goodies you can expect to see from us this year, so stay tuned.”
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for murdok. Visit murdok for the latest search news.
