Don't we have enough search toolbars already? Why add extra clutter to people's computers? I guess I have managed to upset many users when I started distributing xplorer² toolbar with the free lite xplorer² version. Clearly there's a cash incentive for zabkat, earning a few pennies each time you use this toolbar for your internet searches. But this isn't a 1-sided relationship. The toolbar has some unique and genuinely useful features, so I win but you win too. Allow me to demonstrate.

The toolbar is designed for internet explorer and firefox browsers. You get it either by installing the free lite version (if you keep the default checkbox option) or downloading it separately. Once installed it adds row of buttons to your browser with various useful tools. I was using google toolbar before but I consider xplorer² toolbar superior. It is not light years ahead but it does all the basics in a better thought out and more efficient way IMHO. Here's what I use the most:

• Keyword search in results. When you search the internet for pages about "thingummy" it is often very useful to see the search term hilighted within the target webpage. xplorer² toolbar has a button right next to the search box for this purpose. If you click on this button you will jump straight to the first, second and so on occurence of your "thungummy" on page, like as if you manually searched in the page with <Ctrl+F> command. This used to be the killer feature of google toolbar but the latest v5 has messed it up. xplorer² toolbar is more space efficient too, when you have more than one keywords in your search since it doesn't add a button for each of them — just click on the hilighter button to cycle through all the occurences of your keywords on the page.
   
• Email notifier. If you are like me and you've managed to pile up a range of hotmail, yahoo and gmail email accounts, you'll love the toolbar's email notifier. You setup your login details for each account then with a click of the mouse you automatically jump to your inbox, no need to type usernames and passwords. The toolbar can also handle arbitrary POP3 email accounts but for those we have Outlook, no?

You will find more buttons on the xplorer² toolbar like RSS feeds and news, a radio player, some gadgets and games, but to be honest with you I don't use any of that — perhaps just the live weather report button from time to time. For me the killer feature is the keyword hilighter. I can't imagine a more efficient way to manage this functionality, and I plan to add something similar in xplorer² itself. Bye-bye google toolbar! To see the toolbar in action check out today's demo

Download xplorer² toolbar for Internet Explorer and Firefox

How to remove the toolbar
If you don't share my entusiasm for xplorer² toolbar you can uninstall it using the standard windows add/remove programs applet from Control Panel. You don't have to uninstall xplorer² (the file manager); there is a separate uninstall entry for the toolbar. To disable the toolbar without uninstalling it use the Tools > Manage add-ons menu command in Internet Explorer (I'm sure firefox will have a similar command only I am not familiar with it). You may also need to reset your home and default search pages to eliminate all traces of xplorer² toolbar.

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ps. The keyword search in FireFox works a bit differently. Instead of a drop-down menu next to the search box you get a separate button for each searched keyword to the far right of the toolbar. To search for a keyword on the page you click on these buttons instead.