Many people have asked me what the Google toolbar is. Their friends have told them that they should get it but they are nervous about installing something new on to their computer, so I thought we would dedicate a few lines to looking at what it is and how it can be used.
The Google toolbar is an add-on application to your web browser; it can be installed very easily on either Internet Explorer or Firefox by simply going to the following website address – http://toolbar.google.com
So, what’s the advantage of installing the Google toolbar? Firstly one major advantage for those of us that need to look at websites in Spanish, the Google toolbar will automatically offer to translate these websites into our native language. This is a great feature as it attempts to translate the website on the ‘fly’ and you therefore get to see the original website but with the English words where the Spanish words originally were. Ok, sometimes it fails, usually where the words are part of images or the whole website is written in Adobe flash, however most of the time it works well enough to help you understand and navigate the website.
Another useful function of the toolbar is that it places the Google search bar at the top of your web browser, allowing you to quickly and easily perform any Internet searches straight away, so there is no need to have to navigate to the Google page to start your search.
The Google toolbar has a spell-checker built directly into it. This will kick into action in useful situations like when you are typing an email for example, or completing an online form. Again having this available on any page that you happen to be browsing is pretty useful. Whilst we are talking about filling in online forms, the AutoFill function of the toolbar is just fantastic! How many times have you completed your name, email address, house address etc when filling in an online form for a flight, book delivery or something similar? If you are anything like me then the answer is “loads of times!” Well with AutoFill, all the form filling is a thing of the past, the Google toolbar will enable you to create an AutoFill profile with all of that useful information, and with one single mouse click you can fill in any online form – simples!
Another great feature is the ability to customise the toolbar, adding your favourite websites and other buttons. This really does allow you to create a fully personal feel to your web browser, and if that isn’t enough then you can even save the settings of your customisation to your Google account. This way whatever computer you log onto, your customised Google toolbar will be available just as you left it – this is something that I covered recently in reply to a question raised in the Courier newspaper that I write for on a weekly basis.
Well that’s about it for this month, I hope you have found it useful, remember that you can see all of our articles on our website at www.bluemoonsolutions.es/articles