Yahoo! Releases Firefox version of Toolbar 302
kidlinux writes "Yahoo started offering a beta version of its toolbar for the open source browser Firefox on Microsoft Windows on Wednesday, with versions for Linux and MacOS X following 'shortly.' I think it's safe to say most people use Google in their Firefox toolbar search field. Yahoo probably wants to get their foot in the door before it's too late. It would be interesting if this was a result of user demand. And apparently this follows Amazon's Firefox toolbar, which actually is a result of user demand."
On Linux, this is the story (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not needed. (Score:3, Informative)
I would imagine that if you're already a My Yahoo! user, features like this would be awesome. Imagine a Yahoo mail notifier, Yahoo stock ticket, etc... There's a ton Yahoo could do with a Firefox plugin.
One can already use Yahoo in the FF search field (Score:4, Informative)
However, I think it's good that Yahoo is making a FF toolbar. It's just a sign of Firefox's acceptance in the market--that's a good thing.
Re:Firefox's search box is bad UI design (Score:3, Informative)
Control-L, and Tab.
Unless you were referring to moving the mouse pointer to that segment of the window. Then I would be complaining about having to move my mouse to the left for the address bar!
Who uses the Yahoo toolbar? (Score:2, Informative)
I use the Google toolbar, too. I almost immediately install both when I starting using a new system, though if real estate is scarce, I'll skip the Google toolbar. Having the Yahoo toolbar available on Firefox removes a big roadblock to using Firefox regularly.
Re:Not needed. (Score:5, Informative)
The Yahoo! toolbar does more than search. I, for example, will probably use it for the mail notification (I've got yahoo and gmail acounts, and there's no "Yahoo! notifier." Moreover, I feel good about using it just to "reward" them for supporting Firefox.
[goes to download toolbar...]
...except that they only have a Windows version so far. Bah! : (
Re:Firefox's search box is bad UI design (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Why (Score:5, Informative)
You're right, there really is no functionality that the Yahoo toolbar adds to Firefox that's not already there (or available as an extension). But that's not why this story is important.
Microsoft's IE has had such a stranglehold on the browser market since the demise, resurrection, and crapification of Netscape that other browsers were not even on people's radar. Companies with formidible online presences only coded for IE, since that would effectively reach something like 99% of their potential audience; the other 1% using a different browser, such as the intrepid folks on Slashdot, probably didn't even want the product the company was offering anyway.
Fortunately for the internet population, Microsoft's strategy of "ease of use is more important than security" backfired, and their browser was eventually poked full of holes, exploited, and overrun with online annoyances. The next time someone came along with a browser that was both easy to use and secure, the public embraced it. Again, as luck would have it, the first people on the scene were open-source advocates: people with a firm grasp of software architecture, security, and standards adherance.
This story is important because it is Firefox's first foray into the mainstream. We geeks have been championing Firefox for some time now, and the fact that companies with worthless products are integrating with FireFox is a Good Thing (tm). It means that we have a sizeable enough market share to warrant some coding time and money.
Re:Yawn (Score:3, Informative)
There's many vectors for spyware other than the browser. It's only a matter of time before Kazaa and the like start coming with Firefox add-ins.
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why? Two words: (Score:2, Informative)
I have both the google and the yahoo toolbars. I use google for searches and yahoo for bookmarks, and the mail notification in yahoo toolbar is nice.
Where is that cool article-on-whatever-I-was-reading that I want to show a buddy or a user on their computer? That's right, I go to http://bookmarks.yahoo.com, log on and viola! there it is...
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
OSS Yahoo! Toolbar (Score:2, Informative)
Peter Buergner, Dave Viner, Brian Kennelly and a host of others have created an excellent alternative for folks who like the functionality of the Yahoo! Toolbar but prefer Firefox/Mozilla. The current version (0.54) is a bit out of date - a new version should be hitting the servers soon. It is much further along than the official version, with full internationalization support (including Chinese), disposable address support for Yahoo! Mail, the ability to remove the Search Box (a function the official version has apparently removed from both the IE and FF versions) and a few others.
I've looked at the official source code and it's nicely written - probably a bit cleaner than ours, truth be told. We've had quite a bit of discussion on the mailing list about adding features not found on any of the official toolbars (including dynamically folding the Yahoo! bookmarks into the Mozilla/FF bookmarks, the ability to redirect menu selections into new tabs, and a bunch of other stuff). Recent "nightly" builds (more like weeklies, but hey...) have included about:config support for some optional functionality.
Most of us on the Companion team are happy to see official support for Firefox by Yahoo!. It shows that FF is really gaining traction, and will help a lot of Yahoo! users to migrate to the FF platform. Hopefully, most the of the newbs will use the official version (saving us some headaches on the mailing list), and when people want to step up to a more feature-rich version, they can upgrade to our version. One thing the team has been very concerned about is making sure that our version works on all Mozilla platforms, and in both Firefox and Mozilla Suite. Early word is that the official version works best on Firefox on WinXP - there seem to be minor problems using it with the Mozilla Suite, alternate themes and non-XP platforms (the code is all generic Javascript, so I expect those issues to be easily fixable). Our 0.54 build has some issues in Linux due to an improper set of permissions added to a directory it creates to store the Yahoo! feed. This has been fixed in the nightlies, or you can fix it by modifying the permissions of the yahootoolbar_saves directory in your Firefox profile (chmod 666 should do it).
Of course, our version could end up dying in the shade of the official version, but that's competition for you!
p.s. I know a lot of /.ers prefer the Google toolbar, but lots of us have already invested a lot of time in the Yahoo! version and don't feel like switching. Besides, Yahoo! as a portal (currently) has a lot of things Google just doesn't provide - I track my portfolio there, have a My Yahoo! portal page with a lot of localized content, like the quick links to my local sports teams, etc. And, at this point, you've at least got to give Yahoo! credit for being the first to officially support the FF platform (though I have a feeling Google is going to come on very strong, given the recent hiring of Ben Goodger.)
Er, what? (Score:5, Informative)
Let's see, Firefox already does the first two, and the third is arguably useful.
Er... so how do I add RSS feeds to My Yahoo! with Firefox again? Oh wait, I can't.
My Yahoo! is a pretty powerful portal (you have probably never really tried it). I much prefer it to Google news.. it is highly customizeable, I can integrate RSS feeds from anywhere, I can add my own personal calender and to-do list that is synched with my desktop and PDA automatically, it has quick access to my photo album, my local TV listings, the local movie showtimes.. all on one page. It is incredibly useful.
Their Yahoo! toolbar will probably also have a few other things Firefox can't do out of the box, like new mail notification for Yahoo! mail, notifications for calendar events, and possible Yahoo! IM integration.
All that aside, I won't be installing it. But don't dismiss it as redundant so quickly, you haven't even seen it yet.
And for God's sake, don't compare it to Gator, the spawn of Satan.
Re:Why (Score:1, Informative)
Yahoo's directory is a separate beast.