The Mountain View, Calif., search-engine giant is providing its ad publishers with a set of buttons that Web site visitors can use to download Firefox with the Google Toolbar, which is a browser add-in that takes a user directly to Google services, Mozilla announced.
Site operators using the buttons will be paid $1 each time someone installs the browser and toolbar.
There is really no point in stating the obvious; Google has always been a supporter of Mozilla Foundation and especially its Firefox browser.
The buttons are part of a new feature Google has introduced in its AdSense program, which shares revenue with Web site operators that agree to carry advertising from Google. AdSense Referral is for site publishers looking to make money by using Google-provided buttons linking to products and services.
Google has had a close relationship with Mozilla for sometime. Firefox ships with Google search built into the browser. The latest deal expands that relationship by getting the browser on Google’s huge ad network.
Google is already working on building the two brands as a whole and has recently launched an affiliate program for Firefox. And that is not all. Google is also willing to invest in testing several features in Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 like tabbed browsing. As it turns out, users complained about the Back button behavior, because opening a new tab resets the history. Closing of tabs was also a problem for some.
Google also puts some muscle into improving the Firefox browser and since it employs a plenty of Mozilla developers, it has built experimental versions of Firefox, with a different approach on the procedure for browsing with tabs. In spite of these efforts, it is still uncertain if Google’s research will find its way into the final Firefox browser.
If you are a Firefox user who has upgraded to the latest release candidate, you have probably noticed the Google Toolbar has ceased to function. Google has still not released a new version of their toolbar that installs on Firefox 1.5 RC1 and higher. The "max version" in the official google-toolbar.xpi file specifies that it is compatible with versions 1.0 – 1.4.1 (1.0 up to 1.5 BETA). Read on for tips to get your old toolbar working.
A week of speculation about what was happening between Google and Sun turned out to be nothing more than the announcement of bundling the Google Toolbar with Java, thereby exposing it to more users. Now there is even going to be a "Firefox + Google Toolbar" bundle that AdSense members can promote to make money. With Google’s push for people to use their toolbar, it is surprising they have not yet officially released a version compatible with Firefox 1.5 RC1.
Some quick modifications to the google-toolbar.xpi file would work. This file now correctly specifies which versions of Firefox it is compatible with (1.0 – 1.5+). The modified version of the toolbar now works with all release candidates and the final 1.5 version.
Here are the steps that you can follow to use the Google Toolbar with Firefox 1.5 RC1 and higher:
- Save this file (http://toolbar.google.com/firefox/extensions/toolbar/google-toolbar.xpi) to your desktop by right-clicking it and choosing either "Save Link As…" or "Save Target As…"
- Rename this file to google-toolbar.zip
- In the archive, modify the following line in the install.rdf file: Change "1.4.1" To "1.5+" (You may be required to extract this file, modify it, and then replace it)
- Delete entire META-INF directory in the archive
- Rename google-toolbar.zip back to google-toolbar.xpi
- Open Firefox
- Drag google-toolbar.xpi into the main browser area of Firefox
- Click "install" after the countdown
- Close Firefox
- Open Firefox
If everything was done correctly, you should now see the Google Toolbar in your Firefox 1.5 RC1!
Firefox competes with Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer, which dominates the browser market. Microsoft and Google are fierce rivals. Microsoft, which considers the search engines a key competitor, is making a major push in the growing online advertising market where Google and Yahoo Inc. have earned billions of dollars.