Google has released a BETA version of its toolbar which will debut as version 4.

It's currently being tested by users feeling adventurous enough to try out the new features. One of the unfortunate points to be noted is that the Beta is currently available only for users of Internet Explorer 6 on Win 2000 or Win XP. Support for Firefox and Ie 7 will be introduced soon.

To take full advantage, you must have a Google account. If you have a GMail account, you're already part of the Google family <insert evil laugh here>

New Features:

- Suggestions while typing search queries = What's new is that it suggests results from your previous search history too as well as from probable speeling errors you might have made while typing in your search query. Firefox users currently have a similar feature with the Google Suggest extension

- Customizable buttons = You can add buttons from Google's Button Gallery to allow you one-click access to search engines on various sites like amazon.com / slashdot.org / gmail.com etc. There are also buttons which can carry out other functions and users are always creating more.

- Bookmarks = Users can now add bookmarks. The bookmarks are stored as your search history and can be starred to denote importance. As yet, there's no option to do a manual import of your existing bookmarks.

- Send stuff = The new toolbar v4 allows you to send the existing page you're seeing in the browser window using Gmail or post it to your Blogger blog or to send the link via SMS (this feature is restricted to users in the USA).


Of course, all the older features are still present like pop-up blocking, highlighting search terms, auto-fill, translate, spell-check etc. Quite a few improvements, but things do need to be polished especially with the Bookmarks section.

Yeah it has a load of new features, plus a cleaner interface. I have always used the google toolbar and the version 4, and since i have a google account it all integrates nicely. Even on a computer with multi users, each user has seperate preferences. If one person has one google account, the other users can have their seperate account too.

Never needed the google toolbar. Did have it once for firefox, but firefox already had all the functionality that I needed and the google bar was just a extra waste of screen space. i don't know how useful this one will be. Of course they've added some features, but they aren't things that I require frequently.

i use google so much its unbelievable. I love the way google intrages everything nicly and makes it so that your prefrences wont interfere with those of others, google is coming along nicly with the all users its very nice to have a nice company like them who accually look for what the user wants

I hate all that stuff for your toolbar, plain and simple is the way

Forget a google toolbar, and stay clear of the google desktop for sure. Its all just to spy on you anyway.

The greatest advantage of using Google Toolbar is that, it shows the PageRank of each url you browse without any extra effort. As we all know, Google awards a PageRank to each urls based on Google's own PageRank algorithm and PageRank is often judged as an index for quality of the very webpage.
So far as "spy on you" is concerned, considering the reputation that Google has developed since its inception and recognised as the best search engine in the world, it is hard to believe that they will develop something just to "spy on us".