I have the Google Desktop preinstalled on my Dell Vista HP PC. I’m satisfied with the desktop.

At many websites (example (http://www.sportscolumn.com/story/2004/12/9/171527/674)) I get the following message:


This website wants to run the following add-on: ‘Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer’ from Google Inc. If you trust the website and the add-on and want to allow it to run click here.

The option then is to run Active X control.

I believe I have the Google toolbar as part of the desktop. Is this add-on the same thing, or something that I’m missing from Google and might want, or something specific to each such site? Sound suspicious to anyone? Thanks.

You say you have it on the desktop, but is there a Google toolbar in Internet Explorer while you browse the web? They have two different toolbars. The one for Internet Explorer is decent... I could take it or leave it. It's got a popup blocker and can tell you the Google rank of the page you're on, and you can search right from the bar instead of going to the site. Other than that, it's a lot like the desktop toolbar.

The Desktop Google indexes the files on your hard drives while the browser toolbar is only a handy method of doing a Google web search. IE7's popup blocking is adequate so I don't really see the need for the add-on toolbar.

I'm not sure I would know the difference. I do have a toolbar with a Google search window, their pop-up blocker and some other stuff I don't use. I just added the page rank meter. Sounds like I don't need to add anything else. Does anyone who goes to such sites get asked about the add-on. I notice Google's pop-up blocker doesn't block their own pop-ups!

NK, I don't seem to have a pop-up blocker or much else from the IE browser. Would it have been supplanted by the Google stuff preinstalled by Dell? For example, there's no obvious way to know what IE version I have (it is whatever came with the Vista HP OS). Right clicking on the e icon gives properties and such for the shortcut, not the IE program itself.

I am missing the Google toolbar on IE9. The toolbar was so handy to store my bookmarks which I could access from any PC. In my new IE9 I am not seeing the Google search box even though I have opted to have it as the default searc h provider. How do I get these back? Are they hidden?
Srikanth.