Perspectives

Does anybody have a good impression on these things called Toolbars that you install (or gets installed in a few cases) on browsers? Or is it just me who gets irritated with these things so much?

I am only going to comment about Yahoo! Toolbar, but I am guessing these things apply to Google Toolbar (or any other that is out there) too.

• Firstly, I never asked for the toolbar. Apparently, if you keep clicking “next-next” as you install Messenger, the Toolbar gets installed without you realising it.
• I am about to click on some link on a page that I am in, and with this silly touch pad on my laptop, I click Y! personals and end up there.
• Cool, I came back and I decide to customize so that even if I mistakenly click it, I end up going to Flickr or mail than Pets or personals. I spend some time customizing it.
• Now, I realise they have eaten my valuable real estate. I say, big deal, it is just a little bit.
• Ok, now that I have it, I am thinking what was the last thing I ever did on it ?

Search ? Nopes, I am way to used to searching from “Firefox’s” search-box and I am even used to ctrl-k start typing. Am not gonna change that.

Myweb? Nopes, I use delicious sometimes and myweb sometimes and I find the bookmarklets (which I already have) more convienient.

Flickr ? Nopes, ctrl-K + “fl..” + down arrow + enter is faster. ( I visit flickr so many times that all I really have to do are three key storkes, much faster than fiddling with my mouse/touchpad)

YME ? Nopes, All that button really does is to call my YME I just installed.

My Yahoo! ? Sorry, bloglines

Mail ? Same as flickr.

Antispy? You kidding me rite?

Answers? I still dont understand why this is such a popular service to begin with.

Shopping ? Not useful in India. Even in the US, I go to amazon.

Ok, essentially, this is the point:

Let the bolder guy (amongst GYM – If you read Om Malik, you know what I am talking about – ) come up with a toolbar that I can customize to really incorporate the things I mentioned. Just because you pushed Y! Shopping on my toolbar is not why I am going to use it. And when there was no toolbar, I was still using Flickr.

Shouldnt the Yahoo! Toolbar really be a Toolbar than being a Yahoo! bar ? What do you think ?

Related posts:

1. Flock Browser Released
2. What can you possibly do with your weblog ?
3. Honey, They killed the Yahoo! India Maps Print Page!