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Google Puts Gadgets in Browser Toolbar

Posted on: Friday, 27 June 2003, 06:00 CDT

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Online search engine Google introduced several new gadgets in its popular toolbar for Web browsers, hoping to build even greater brand loyalty amid heightened competition.

The new software out Thursday for the toolbar includes a feature that automatically blocks pop-up ads, as well a program that automatically fills out Internet forms seeking a customer's name and address.

The function that fills in forms offers an option to store credit card numbers too, but the information is encrypted on the hard drive of a user's computer instead of Google's computers, for security and privacy reasons.

The toolbar also enables users to transfer online content to Internet journals known as Weblogs, or "blogs," by pressing a button.

Google emphasized that the new toolbar is still being tested and could be revised later.

The new features represent Google's most ambitious upgrade of its toolbar since the Mountain View, Calif.-based company offered the software in December 2000. The toolbar works only on Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)'s Internet Explorer, the world's dominant Web browser.

Google created the toolbar so users could conduct online searches without going to Google's Web site. The toolbar is embedded within the Explorer browser.

Although it won't provide specific figures, Google says millions of Web surfers have downloaded its toolbar in the past 2 1/2 years.

The success of Google's toolbar has inspired a wide variety of other Web sites to offer similar software.

Google hopes its improvements will encourage more people to download its toolbar and create even more visibility for one of the Internet's best-known names.

The toolbar improvements are being rolled out as some powerful rivals take aim at Google's leadership in the lucrative field of online search.

Yahoo! Inc. is spending millions on a marketing campaign touting the power of its search engine, which licenses some of its technology from Google. Microsoft is also investing heavily in technology to improve its MSN.com search engine.

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