Google Toolbar 5 now available in Firefox

A few months ago we launched several new features for Google Toolbar in Internet Explorer. Since then, we've received many emails asking us when we plan to support all our new features in Firefox.

Guess what: Starting today, you can download the latest version of Google Toolbar for Firefox, available in 29 languages. This new version is the first Toolbar launched out of our St. Petersburg, Russia office. It includes all the Toolbar features you know and love, such as Search, Bookmarks and Translate. When you install it, you can try out some of our newest features.

We don't like to play favorites among Toolbar's features, but it's hard not be wowed by Autofill. You can create several profiles with personal or business information including different addresses, email addresses and credit card details. So anytime you want to fill an online form, just click on Autofill and the right information will appear in the form automatically. All your information is safely stored only in your own computer, with your credit card numbers encrypted and protected by a password.

We also love Google Gadgets in Toolbar. Gadgets bring information from your favorite websites closer to you. For example, you can add the YouTube gadget to your Toolbar. When you want to have a quick break from work, click on the YouTube icon and search or view videos in a box that pops down from the Toolbar, without leaving the web page you are on. Close that box when you're done with it (or when your manager starts walking towards your cube). You can find the YouTube gadget and thousands of others in our gallery.


We look forward to get your feedback, or to hear your stories about the exciting ways you are using Toolbar's features. We hope that you enjoy the new Google Toolbar as much as our team enjoyed building it!

If you're interested in learning more about Google Toolbar, visit us at http://tools.google.com/firefox/toolbar/FT5 or check out our video:



Announced by Vladislav Kaznacheev, Head, St. Petersburg Engineering Office, and Igor Bazarny, Software Engineer, Toolbar team

Update to Google Suggest

It's a feature designed to make searching both faster and easier. Whether you are typing into the search box on Google Toolbar or Google.com, or the Omnibox in Google Chrome, Google Suggest guesses what you're typing and offers suggestions in real time. So for example, if you type "bass," Google Suggest might offer a list of refinements that include "bass fishing" or "bass guitar." Similarly, if you type in only part of a word, like "prog," Google Suggest might offer you refinements such as "programming," "programming languages," "progesterone," or "progressive." Again, these suggestions allow you to enter your searches faster, but also in a way that will more likely get you the results you're looking for.

That's what occurs on the surface of Google Suggest. Here's what happens under the hood. To provide its recommendations Google Suggest needs to know what you've already typed, so these partial queries are sent to Google. For 98% of these requests, we don't log any data at all and simply return the suggestions. For the remaining 2% of cases (which we select randomly), we do log data, like IP addresses, in order to monitor and improve the service.

However, given the concerns that have been raised about Google storing this information -- and its limited potential use -- we decided that we will anonymize it within about 24 hours (basically, as soon as we practically can) in the 2% of Google Suggest requests we use. This will take a little time to implement, but we expect it to be in place before the end of the month.

All data retention is a balance between user privacy and trust on the one hand, and security and innovation on the other. In the case of Google Suggest we decided it's possible to provide a great service while anonymizing data almost immediately. But in other cases - such as our core web search - storing data like IP addresses for a time is crucial to make improvements to search quality, improve security, fight fraud and reduce spam.

You can read more about our privacy policies on the Google Privacy Center, check out the Google Search Privacy: Plain and Simple video for more information about how our server logs work.

Announced by Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Operations

Related:

Google Toolbar

Google Toolbar comes with Firefox and having some more Features.

Toolbar Features

> Add buttons to the Toolbar
to search your favorite sites. View button gallery
> Bookmark frequently visited pages
and access them from anywhere
> Search smarter with instant suggestions
as you type in the search box
> Share web pages with friends
via blog, email, or SMS

More Features
Related : Toolbar