Google Bundles Toolbar With Adobe Apps

grammar fascist writes "Sci-Tech Today reports that Google is paying a 'significant amount' to bundle Google Toolbar with certain Adobe downloads. From the article: 'The initial venue for the Google mini-app will be downloads of the popular and free Shockwave multimedia player. The move is seen by some observers as an effort to outflank Microsoft, especially as Internet Explorer 7 nears its formal launch this summer [...] Interestingly, Google's search toolbar will be available only when Shockwave is downloaded for use with Internet Explorer on Windows.'"

Re:Google crazyness..

[Killshot]

I am pretty sure google does not serve ads in this way. I have google desktop and never had this problem.

Re:I'm all for it

[SimGuy]

Flash 9 is coming.... http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/ [adobe.com]

Re:Google crazyness..

[rm69990]

I never experienced any ads or any of the behaviour you describe when using Google Desktop....in-fact, of all the reviews and everything I have read about the program, you are the first to even say anything.

As for the firewall thing, did you enable Search Across Computers by any chance? Did you read the linked to privacy policy explaining what the feature does?

Re:Google crazyness..

[Jugalator]

GoogleDesktopDisplay.exe has not been widely reported to cause any problems with popups despite its wide use, so your problem likely lies elsewhere, like in Internet Explorer.

Re:Alternatives

[danielpavel]

Re: Acrobat Reader.

I don't understand why people bother with AR anymore. Other PDF viewers like FoxIt Reader [foxitsoftware.com] manage to do nostly the same in less than 1MB.

Re:Obnoxious

[stunt_penguin]

A/C, I've made Flash applications that make HTML pages look bloated. Blame retarded designers and clients for oversized Flash. If i made a site with a hundred big JPEG images on the homepage you wouldn't blame HTML or the JPEG format, so get off your ass and email the offending websites and tell them to get off their asses.

Also, what other brilliant solution do you have for delivering multimedia over the web? Javascript? Realplayer? Windows media player? Give me a fuckin' break.

Actually the closest thing to it is Quicktime, but then that requires embedded flash elements for interactivity.

*sits back and watches his karma funeral pyre*

Re:Obnoxious

[zlogic]

Actually, Google have done this before - DivX used to have Google Toolbar included, and now even Google Desktop is bundled with it.

Re:Google crazyness..

[jrumney]

Are you sure it was google desktop responsible for all those ads or perhaps it was all the p0rn sites visited with IE.

Pretty sure. Turns out it is a feature called "Alerts", which there is no mention of in the normal Preferences, or the documentation for Google Desktop, but if you enable the Desktop Sidebar and look in the menu for that, there is an extra item "Customize Alerts...", where you can disable them. Since I never use the sidebar, I had no idea this feature existed, I guess it got turned on by the IE Google Toolbar since it lay dormant until I fired up IE for the first time.

As for the mods that modded you +1 Informative, rather than Funny, and my original post -1 Troll, you need to stop smoking the Google crack guys.

Will this come bundled with Flash?

[assassinator42]

It only says it will come bundles with Shockwave, not flash. Yet as I look at their site now, the Flash download page includes an option for the Yahoo toolbar, while the Shockwave download does not. I'm not sure if it asks you to download it later along, though. Please, news writers, do some reasearch about what you're talking about. The Flash and Shockwave players are two different things. The later, last time I checked, not available on Linux, and likely never will be.

Re:Only with IE? Good!

[rolyatknarf]

You can go here: http://www.dslreports.com/ [dslreports.com] and do a quick search for setting up ATT/Yahoo without using the installation CD and all the crap it installs. This works on all platforms and with whatever software you use now.