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Add-on Guidelines in Action – Crawler Toolbar

A new version of the Crawler Toolbar has recently been released and comes with many improvements to the user experience similar to the changes we described in a previous post about the AVG Security Toolbar. It’s another great example of the Guidelines for add-on developers in action. Here are some high-level examples of the changes they’ve made:

  • The close button is visible so that users can manage it like other toolbars. Additionally, the toolbar is positioned in a supported location which improves stability and performance.
  • It no longer modifies the new tab page to maintain a predictable new tab experience for users.

Many thanks to the Crawler Toolbar team for the work they’ve done to provide a more predictable and reliable experience, keeping users in control of the browser.

-Paul Cutsinger and Herman Ng

Before: Previous version of Crawler Toolbar

new tab page with the old Crawler toolbar which modifies the new tab page.

After: Newest version (5.1.0.177) of the Crawler Toolbar provides a more predictable experience and lets users stay in control of their browser

new tab page with the new Crawler toolbar which does not modify the new tab page.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    another useless toolbar. i have toolbars. i don't nned them and i don't use them.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Toolbar fancy. Waiting for new kind of toolbar with more function

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    hey, where is my previous comment about i have toolbars like this one? censorship ? this topic about this toolbar is absolutely useless as the toolbar itself. i suggest to put here some detail info about next version of IE or about the latests security problem found in IE.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    correction: ... i hate toolbars like this one?...

  • Anonymous
    January 14, 2010
    Why can't I disable the Google toolbar with the x? Try it - it is impossible disable the Google add-ons in IE8 with the x next to the toolbar; to stop it from spying on your web browsing you have to uninstall it from add/remove programs.

  • Anonymous
    January 14, 2010
    Cool, nice, thanks. About the Chinese cyber attack against Google etc. that's creating a roar, it is said McAfee notified Microsoft that it's using (among other vectors) a yet not public IE flaw. Could we get specifics? I don't want to nag, but had it been a Firefox flaw, there'd already be an announcement on the Mozilla blog, a proposed workaround, and a tentative release date for a fixed version. The same with Opera and Chrome. Safari would keep mum about it and release a fix in April, so don't feel bad yet. I'll just remind you that it's already been publicized, and although details are unknown and should remain so until a fix is ready, a time table, affected products, workarounds etc. would be helpful.

  • Anonymous
    January 14, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 14, 2010
    @Mitch: See http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2010/01/14/security-advisory-979352.aspx for discussion.

  • Anonymous
    January 15, 2010
    I find it quite funny that we are still talking about toolbars. Outside of the Web Developer Toolbar for Firefox I don't use any toolbar addons - yet I have dozens and dozens of addons installed in Firefox. Then again in IE I don't have any installed because there are no good, free addons for IE.

  • Anonymous
    January 15, 2010
    <<there are no good, free addons for IE>> Most things phrased as absolutes, including that remark, are plainly incorrect. Had you said "there are lots and lots of bad free and pay add-ons for IE" then I'd have to agree with you.

  • Anonymous
    January 15, 2010
    Interesting post. By the way, could you post something regarding future plans of IE, i.e. SVG support, HTML5 elements implementation, etc? Thank you

  • Anonymous
    January 15, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 15, 2010
    @Matthew - Name 10 good free addons for IE.  It isn't easy is it? Yet if you reverse that and name 10 good free addons for Firefox - its a piece of cake.

  • Anonymous
    January 15, 2010
    A new add-on for IE, this is amazing. But as time goes on and many add-ons created, is it not affected the bulky think that affects the computer someday?

  • Anonymous
    January 15, 2010
    Is it a safe toolbar? Whats IE Blog's take? Pls see discussion here : http://forum.thewindowsclub.com/microsoft-internet-explorer/30074-ie-blog-crawler-toolbar.html

  • Anonymous
    January 16, 2010
    @EricLaw: thanks for the link!

  • Anonymous
    January 16, 2010
    All part of Microsoft's plan to get rid of the Google toolbar! Step 1: Create a set of "guidelines" in 2009, after toolbars have been used by millions of users. Step 2: Make it very easy to accidentally close the toolbars, and claim that it is about "user choice"!  Of course, no Microsoft product is designed with close buttons on the left hand side, but somehow it is the right location in a IE toolbar! Step 3: Pay vendors to utilize the new "guidelines" and show them around as pretty ponies Step 4: Sue Google, telling the judge how great the guidelines are and how everyone else is doing it! Good Job, Microsoft!

  • Anonymous
    January 16, 2010
    Microsoft sue Google? You clearly don't know much about the law. If Google gets sued, it will be by end-users; Google pays other companies to install their toolbar, and they make it hard for the user to get rid of it. Pretty sad.

  • Anonymous
    January 16, 2010
    Toolbars aren't worth their space.

  • Anonymous
    January 16, 2010
    I'm not a fan of toolbars, I like when it there is space :) But Firefox plugin SeoQuake is worth that space :)

  • Anonymous
    January 17, 2010
    I got a call from my neighbor one day .He was complaining that his browser (IE8) was not  working apparently due to no reason. When I got there ,TOO late he had already switched to Firefox. The sad part is that it wasn't totally IE's fault.A bad browser toolbar was crashing and ie was continuously recovering the page. It was partly IE's fault because it wasn't smart enough to disable the offending add-on. Not everyone knows or wants to mess with iexplore-extoff you know.

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2010
    @nav01: If you're still using IE6, you SHOULD be worried, and should upgrade to something more secure today. ie8 has dep and aslr and runs in protect mode. ... and if you think that just using a non-IE browser will help you, keep in mind that FF had more vulnerabilities last year than IE did.  And for the chrome fans in the house, keep in mind that Acrobat Reader was one of the other vectors the china hackers were using, and that chrome runs its extensions in a full-trust process not in protect mode.

  • Anonymous
    January 19, 2010
    @nav01 You should be on http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/default.aspx

  • Anonymous
    January 19, 2010
    If you do view source for a plain simple html page with 4000 rows in a table with 6 columns per row, IT 8 stalls out and takes hundreds of megabytes of memory.  Can we get a view source that doesn't try to parse the source such as a 'View Source as Text'

  • Anonymous
    January 19, 2010
    Bundle Chrome Frame with IE = instant win

  • Anonymous
    January 20, 2010
    @Greg You're right, but IE isn't the only browser having problems with large tables.

  • Anonymous
    January 20, 2010
    Toolbar fancy. Waiting for new kind of toolbar with more function

  • Anonymous
    January 21, 2010
    Question for the IE team, what exactly do I have to do to force IE7 and lower to render pages served as application/xml in standards mode? Due to the W3C bot issue I've been forced to use the not-a-doctype HTML5 "doctype" and I've been able to get the page styling to apply however not matter what I do in IE7 and below IE always forces the page to be rendered in quirks mode. I'm well aware of IE6 and below's inability to render XHTML documents in standards mode with the XML declaration which is not part of the dilema.