

Ask HN: When will the toolbar madness end? - d_r

I just logged in to Amazon to purchase an item. This is a company I highly respect as an engineer.<p>What greeted me was a series of prompts for "Your Amazon Browser: Internet Explorer 8 Optimized for Amazon.com"<p>Clicking in, there was an ad copy that mentioned a custom toolbar that makes shopping easier, and a disclaimer that the toolbar features Alexa and will collect your browsing information. Having Amazon peddle this made me feel cheated.<p>I use Google Chrome and couldn't be happier. But I feel incredibly bad for the average computer user with Internet Explorer (unpatched) with 10 toolbars for Yahoo Search, Bing, Amazon, et cetera.<p>It's the direct opposite of the Apple App Store experience. Any company can make a quick buck by spreading their toolbar. Microsoft doesn't curate the browser plugins in any way. A typical user is not savvy and installs everything "free." This results in a terrible computing experience.<p>I'm not even mentioning spyware -- only the "legitimate" browser plugins such as Yahoo, Bing, Amazon, etc. Some friends have every single one installed.<p>This is a problem that bothers me as a hacker. What can be done? Some thoughts:<p>- Promoting platforms instead of toolbars (e.g. Chrome plugins). More useful features (like Rapportive) instead of yet another search box.<p>- Browsers that implicitly force good UI (e.g. allowing no more than 1 toolbar to be installed)<p>- Curating plugins, App Store-style.
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sz
Why do companies produce these toolbars? I can think of two reasons:

1\. as an enticement to install something they want on the client (e.g.
spyware)

2\. as a way to place their services closer to the user to make them more
likely to be used (e.g. search)

So, to respond to your ideas:

\- Useful, thoughtful plugins serve a completely different purpose

\- Unnecessarily restrictive

\- The problem isn't users going out and installing stupid toolbars, it's
companies bundling them with other products.

I would propose this instead: since toolbar-pushers are relying on the toolbar
being trivial to install and annoying to remove, the browser should just make
it trivial to remove as well (a mandatory "x" on the right side that
uninstalls the toolbar).

~~~
lazyjeff
Another reason is to collect data on the webpages you visit for data mining
and improving web search. The more data a search company has, the better it
can rank results and personalize ads.

See these papers from Microsoft and Yahoo:
[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.161...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.161.3605&rep=rep1&type=pdf)
<http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1557019.1557135>
<http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1835449.1835548>

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photon_off
The goal of my current startup is: finally a toolbar you actually want to use.
I'm eliminating the need for installation, the toolbar only comes up when you
tell it to, it's customizable, and it's actually quite useful. You pick the
things you want; google, amazon, urbandictionary, whatever.

I realize this post is little else than self promotion, but I've been working
60 hrs a week on it and rather enjoy hearing that people are still suffering
from toolbar hell. Beta in 2 weeks.

~~~
chc
Pretty far off topic, but: How on earth can you eliminate the need for
installation? Do browsers have some new ability these days to automatically
run remote code?

~~~
photon_off
Your question is spot on.

Bookmarklets.

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kalsze
<sarcasm> Maybe those users still have 4:3 monitors and want to make it feel
more like a widescreen without spending more money.

Make a toolbar and call it the "Toolbar Curator Pro 2011“ so the user can
hide/disable other toolbars easily (Hey, most of them don't know that you can
open "Internet Options", go to the "Programs" tab and click on "Manage add-
ons".) Then, market it by saying how it's free and it even comes with Alta
Vista search function. I bet most of those users don't have Alta Vista as a
search provider in IE8 and it would sound _so_ new and hip to them. </sarcasm>

Seriously though, I think sz's suggestion is not bad.

I believe that toolbars are just one facet of the bigger problem. Toolbars
clutter the UI, but there are also BHOs that are invisible and waste memory
and processor, not to mention their inherent spy-like nature. They are even
more evil than toolbars. I think Microsoft should drop the name "Browser
Helper Object". To me, the name "BHO" is unnecessarily long and complicated,
yet it doesn't convey a lot more meaning than "plug-in" or "add-on" (to the
non-geeky user anyway). When the user tries to disable a toolbar in IE8, the
browser also prompts whether to disable related BHOs. And I bet that most
users are uncomfortable disabling BHOs because the name sounds foreign.

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ehsanul
Short of replacing the way toolbars work on IE now, I think the only solution
for all the toolbars that already exist is for users to hate them as much as
we do. Perhaps some sort of user education would help?

But many people don't seem to care, and may even feel that all the toolbars
are useful to them. And if they don't care either way, perhaps you shouldn't
feel quite so bad for them. It's not difficult to remove toolbars, and if
you're not computer-savvy enough to do that, ask your computer-savvy friend
how to do it.

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acqq
To me it's funny that you worry about toolbars that collect your browsing
information and ignore the extent in which Chrome does the same.

It's true Google has their tracking scripts on most of the web pages today but
what Chrome does in the background seems to be one dimension more. The only
difference from the toolbars is that you're not aware of it as the browser "is
faster than other ones."

~~~
MisterWebz
_but what Chrome does in the background seems to be one dimension more._

How would you know that?

~~~
acqq
Try to analyze the traffic. See if something goes to Google even for the sites
that don't already have Google's tracking scripts on them.

I know, "it's all for convenience of user."

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sandipagr
reminds me of uninstalling all the toolbars whenever I get home... You won't
believe whenever I see my parents home desktop, half of the browser is taken
up by these toolbars..strangely people don't even care about getting rid of
them (not to mention dont know what to do with them as well)

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skinnymuch
Will you in anyway use Amazon less? Assuming not, I don't really see why these
companies would stop.

On top of that, most people using these toolbars don't have a problem with
them even after being told about their drawbacks.

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bconway
It's a disease!

[http://www.scapegoatmedia.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/11/too...](http://www.scapegoatmedia.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/11/too_many_toolbars.jpg)

