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Yahoo Releases Toolbar Beta For Firefox
Friday, February 11, 2005
Yahoo launches a beta release of a toolbar for Mozilla Firefox,
a sign of the increasing popularity of the open-source web browser.
Yahoo Inc. on Thursday launched a beta release of a toolbar for
Mozilla Firefox, a sign of the increasing popularity of the open-source
web browser.
The Sunnyvale, Calif., portal giant is providing Firefox users
with a version of the toolbar Yahoo currently provides for Microsoft
Corp.'s Internet Explorer. The purpose of the software, which is
installed under the browser's address bar, is to give people one-click
access to Yahoo services.
Features in the toolbar beta include search that looks for information
on the web, Yahoo or on a particular website. There's also a search
history to check previous searches.
Translation of web pages written in foreign languages is available
through the use of Babel Fish, a translation tool provided by Overture
Services Inc. that ships with the Yahoo Toolbar.
In addition, the beta software provides mail notification and alerts
for subscribers of Yahoo's email service.
Mitchell Baker, president of the Mozilla Foundation, which oversees
the development of Firefox, said in a joint statement with Yahoo
that the announcement "demonstrates the popularity of the browser
and the success of the Mozilla platform."
Indeed, the most recent figures from WebSideStory Inc., a San Diego-based
web analytics firm, indicate that Firefox has about 5 percent of
the browser market, while Internet Explorer has about 90 percent.
The Mozilla Foundation says the browser has been downloaded 23 million
times since the 1.0 version was released in November.
The Firefox toolbar does not support Yahoo's Anti-Spyware feature,
which the company plans to include in a future update. The toolbar
is available only for Windows, with versions for the Mac OS X and
Linux expected soon.
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