Guide to Toolbars

I hate toolbars. I refuse to download any more toolbars than what I already have and that ain't much. I have the stumble toolbar for FireFox and my personal bookmarks toolbar.

These darn things just take up too much space. I'm blind as a bat which means that I have a fairly good sized monitor with the settings blown up big enough that I don't have to squint to read the text.

Carpel tunnel is one of the crueler jokes the internet has played on me and I suffer from it in both hands and wrists. Scrolling down makes my hands go numb enough that if I bang them on the edge of my desk I don't feel a damned thing.

Toolbars are not carpel tunnel and blind friendly. They take up a good chunk of the top of the screen and constantly catch my eye. It's distracting and irritating. Not to mention there's usually not enough room across the width of the screen so things get pushed down on to the next line. Thus the top of my screen has become a cluttered mess.

I tried this Firefox add-on called Smart Bookmars Bar. It's supposed to make all the links in my personal toolbar shrink to icons without text except when you mouse over them, then they expand so you can see the link text. It was cool at first until I realized that some sites don't have their own icon and you can't tell which bookmark is which unless you mouse over them. I think I used the toolbar for two weeks before I grew weary of it and ditched it.

I don't like MSN's toolbar because I don't use hotmail or messenger and that's pretty much all it does besides search. What's the point; I say plenty between blogging and writing.

I'm currently trying out the google toolbar and so far it seems to be a great tool. It allows me to sign in to my iGoogle account and has buttons for my gmail, bookmarks, news, spell checking, auto fills forms, rhapsody, Rolling Stone Magazine, internet search, and lets me send things to my blog, SMS and gmail account.

There are so many toolbars on the net that if you use them all you'd only be left with a small portion of the bottom of the screen to view web sites in and that's absurd. Here's a list of a bunch of toolbars I found on the web.

Yahoo - I would probably use this one if I had it simply because our ISP is through Yahoo and I use a lot of their features on a daily basis. The Yahoo toolbar gives you buttons to go directly to your Yahoo mail, My Yahoo, add bookmarks and has some pop-up blocking capabilities.

Windows Live - Who'd a thunk it? It's actually a cool toolbar. Now I'm not sure if I hate toolbars or if I'm just angry that I can't use all of them without sacrificing viewable space on the monitor. Anyway this toolbar has rss feeds, maps and a few other really usable features.

AltaVista - I'm sorry but this toolbar just looks plain boring. It's a basic search and bookmark toolbar.

Mapquest toolbar - This one is awesome. I can really see myself using this one. All you have to do is type the info right into the toolbar and it will search for you. You don't have to put in mapquest's URL anymore or even bother bookmarking it. I'd give this one an A+ if I was grading it.

Alexa - Reminds me of AltaVista - boring. Not worth writing home about, that's for sure.

eBay - This is another toolbar that lacks creativity. You have the options to search eBay with the toolbar but otherwise it's pretty much the same as AltaVista and Alexa with minimal features you can find anywhere like Yahoo Mail and My Yahoo.

Yoono - I love this toolbar. It is so much more than just a toolbar. It is an entire community very similar to MyBlogLog. It allows you to bookmark sites, add notes, share your bookmarks, (known as a buzz) keep track of your current browser's bookmarks, track web sites you've recently visited, show pictures, video and audio from sites you have buzzed as well as interact with other Yoono members. This thing will even suggest web sites with one click, based on your previous web history.

ChaCha - Don't waste the time it takes to download this one. The only perk to this toolbar is that it allows you to search with a live guide without going through two pages of ChaCha's website first. The sad thing is live searches are the way a ChaCha guide gets paid so feel for your fellow WAHM or WAHD and do a search with them even if it's not with the toolbar. ImageShack - This is a pretty nifty toolbar. It allows you to drag and drop pictures from the internet or your computer onto the toolbar itself. It will show you a slideshow of your pics and give you a linking code. You can also use the toolbar to post your pics to your blog or assign them tags.

PureVideo - The purevideo toolbar is exactly what its name says it is. It's a toolbar that gives you access to all the videos you can find. There are 13 "gadgets" that go along with this toolbar that provide that access. The gadgets are for YouTube, iTunes, Yahoo Music, Translation Service, Rhapsody, Lab Pixies TV, Flickr Slides, memory game, clock, calculator, Your IP Address, To-do list, and calorie calculator.

eSpew - eSpew is a music toolbar that allows you to search for Mp3s. You an also receive Mp3s into your toolbar through rss feeds. eSpew gives you the option to search for free ringtones and enter radio chat as well.