Re: Google Toolbar (DON'T INSTALL - MORE ADDICTIVE THAN CRACK?)

"Vanguard" <vanguard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23CH0ZZy8GHA.3264@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"photog" wrote in message news:12jck1df8o73s35@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<snip>
Considering how much effort some expend on preventing updates the
Google
toolbar must be more addictive than crack. I feel luck to have never
used
it. YMMV
Resisting mightily the temptation to install every doodad offered,
photog

Actually I end up disabling much of the Google toolbar. I don't need
all the extra fluff. In fact, I'm almost to the point of not
requiring the Google Toolbar itself at all because shortcuts can be
defined using TweakUI to do various searches.

In TweakUI, under the Internet Explorer node, you can define search
strings. By entering the prefex string you define followed by
whatever you want to search on, the URL with the string gets used to
send the string to the search engine and do the lookup for you. For
example, I have the following prefixes defined using TweakUI (first
line is the prefix string, 2nd is the URL that gets used):

acro (for finding acronyms)
http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?String=exact&Acronym=%s

dict (for looking up words)
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=%s

g (for Google searches)
http://www.google.com/search?q=%s

gg (for searching Google Groups, descending date order)
http://groups.google.com/groups?scoring=d&q=%s

gi (for searching Google Images)
http://images.google.com/images?q=%s

gn (for searching Google News)
http://news.google.com/news?q=%s

ms (for searching Microsoft's web site)
http://search.microsoft.com/search/results.aspx?qu=%s

mss (for searching Microsoft's support knowledgebase)
http://support.microsoft.com/search/default.aspx?spid=global&query=%s

thes (for thesaurus lookups)
http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=%s

wiki (for searching Wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s

So if I want to search Gooogle on, say, Virtual PC 2007, I enter in
the Address Bar in IE:

g virtual pc 2007

and the following URL gets opened:

http://www.google.com/search?q=virtual+pc+2007

The plus characters get automatically added since undelimited spaces
are not allowed in URLs. I don't need the Google Toolbar any more. I
can use the prefix in the address bar in IE, in Windows Explorer, or
in the taskbar (if you add the Address toolbar). Of course, you call
still use the "?" prefix in the address bar for whatever is configured
as the default search URL (but, for me, that only works properly for
the Address bar in IE and not in Windows Explorer or in the taskbar).
With the prefix, I get the same results web page as when using the
Google Toolbar. The only thing that is missing (and which I still
leave enabled in the Google Toolbar) is the Highlight button which
highlights each word in the search string using a different color so
you can quickly see where each word appears within a web page.

There remains little need for me to keep the Google Toolbar around.
Google keeps adding more fluff which means I have to keep disabling
more of it. I just wanted it for a handy toolbar for doing searches,
but the prefix strings that I've defined (which gives flexibility) in
the address bar work very well. Defining your own search URLs
provides more flexibility than I get with one toolbar that is geared
to just one search database.

Good post Vanguard. To implement your solution requires XP and TweakUI.
Readers can get TweakUI for XP here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
For those like myself who don't use XP there are two alternatives:
1 Click "Search" in the IE menubar and choose "Customize" then select "Use
one search service" then select a search engine for the search window and
for the address bar. I use Altavista for the window and Google for the
address bar. I don't recommend choosing MSN for either due to privacy
concerns (IIRC).
2 Download - install the Internet Explorer 5 Quick Search Web Accessory
here:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/ie5/Utility/1/W98NT42KMeXP/EN-US/ie5wa.exe
It works fine with IE6 and earlier versions of WIN. It comes with several
custom search strings built in and you can create more (like you did
Vanguard).
Here's a link that explains the solutions above:
http://www.petri.co.il/quickly_search_the_web.htm
For my own searches I use a custom search page I created that resides on my
PC and on my website.
Cheers
photog


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