Tom Doyle :: TALK

I just installed the Google Toolbar 5 beta. How disappointed am I? Well the fact that it now acts like a piece of malware software by hijacking any 404 error page (page not found) with their lovely search engine is enough for me to uninstall it straight away.

I did once love my Google Toolbar, it was unintrusive and only appeared when I required it. Now however, it insists on being in my face if I type something by mistake, go to a webpage that is no longer there or simply just to annoy me.

Once step too far for me Google, I’ll be uninstalling this straight away and praying that you don’t enforce the use of this in the next official release.

I’m sure I’m not the only one that will feel this way…

Anyway, so how do I turn this feature off?

1. Click the wrench icon on the Toolbar
2. In the options window, select the Search tab
3. Uncheck “Browse by name in the address bar”
4. Click save. All done..

I think Matt Cutts has a very naive opinion of how obtrusive this is. Doesn’t he remember how obtrusive he felt it was when Rogers hijacked Google.com? I know it’s a slightly different situation, but it amounts to the same thing.