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Handy  Toolbars Make for Faster Searches

By Julian Sher

When you’re surfing the web, the toolbar is that top row of buttons always on display in your browser that allow you to click on “Home”, “Back” “Forward” or type in an address. But you can customize your web surfing by adding other toolbars. These are all free downloads that become a permanent part of your web work.

They can save you time by giving you instant access to information you frequently require.  Choose the one or two that conform to your needs and tastes.

                                    SINGLE SEARCH ENGINES

Most of the basic search engines now offer toolbars.  What’s neat is that each of them usually also provide bonus features that can come in very handy.

Google: In previous columns, we have seen the advantages of the Google Toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com. It gives you instant access not only to Google search, but also Advanced Google, Google News and Google Groups. It even bocks pop-up ads!  (Google offers only a version for Internet Explorer, but you can get a volunteer-created Googlebar for Netscape at http://googlebar.mozdev.org/

Yahoo:   The Yahoo Companion at http://companion.yahoo.com/ allows you to search using Yahoo, but also gives you access to your Yahoo Mail, plus you can save your favourite bookmarks and access them from any computer.

HotBot:  This veteran engine has a Quick-Search Deskbar at http://www.hotbot.com/tools/.  Of course it gives you handy access to its own decent search engine, but you also can send email, check maps, and even install an alarm.

Ask Jeeves: This toolbar at http://sp.ask.com/docs/toolbar of course gives you the simple-to-use, common language search tool called Ask Jeeves.  But you can also hunt for stuff in news, the stock market, weather, maps, and the Ask Jeeves Kids web sites.

Teoma: One of the newer search engines, Teoma’s  Search Bar at http://sp.ask.com/docs/teoma/toolbar/ gives you some of the special features of this brilliant new tool and provides the ability to email any web page you view.

                                    MULTIPLE SEARCH TOOLS

If you like using  more than one search engine at a time, there are also toolbars for you.

Dogpile:  One of best multiple search engines, the Dogpile toolbar queries 13 major engines including Google. You can search through  yellow or white pages and check a dictionary and thesaurus.

Trellian  at http://www.trellian.com/toolbar/ allows you to retrieve up to nine result pages for many different search engines.

The Groowe Toolbar at http://www.groowe.com gives you Google, but also Yahoo, Teoma, AllTheWeb, AltaVista and many more. You can also do specialized searches – for example,  find pictures from AllTheWeb, news from AltaVista.

                                    SPECIAL TOOLS

Finally, there are some specialized tools that do more than search.

Alexa  at http://download.alexa.com/Alexa  gives you access to Google search results  -- but also all the special functions of  the Alexa web page.  Alexa tells you about the web page you are visiting – who is behind it, how popular it is, what are similar sites.  A great tool to have for the internet detective!

Dave's Quick Search Taskbar :  This is the king of the specialized tools at http://www.dqsd.net/.  Unlike all the other tools, this toolbar installs itself on your taskbar – that bottom strip of icons on your desktop.  Type in any word and it searches Google. Simply add an exclamation point to the word (for example, fbi!) and you get Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” function which automatically transports you to the first result. Type in any city, followed by an asterisk (Paris*) and you get the weather.  Put a colon at the end of a word (larceny:) and you get a dictionary definition.  There are tons of other shortcuts to learn.

So as you can see, there is lot to choose from. My personal favourites are the Google Toolbar and Dave’s Taskbar. Experiment with a few of them to see what is the best fit for you – and happy, speedier surfing.

____________________________________________________________________

Julian Sher, the creator and webmaster of Journalism Net (www.journalismnet.com), does Internet training in newsrooms around the world. He can be reached by email at jsher@journalismnet.com.  This article and many other columns from “Media” magazine are available online with hot links on the JournalismNet Tips page at www.journalismnet.com/tips

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