We’ve all probably heard about the advertising that Google does for Firefox and also about the Optimized IE 7 for Yahoo, but did you know that Google also has their own version of IE 7 that includes the Google Toolbar? You can go directly to the page with Google’s IE 7 offering or you can do a search on Google for IE 7 and it will be the first thing that shows (a sponsored result).
It’s really not that big of a deal because I only got that sponsored listing to pop-up when searching for something that was Internet Explorer related. That means the only people who will download it will be the ones that are planning on downloading IE 7 anyways so it isn’t like they are trying to take away the market share from Firefox. I find it more amusing that they are so mum about it and haven’t said anything on their official blog.
What’s pretty funny is that when you compare the Google and Yahoo IE pages they are obviously some sort of generic presentation that Microsoft gives to these distributors. The only thing that is really different are the words Yahoo/Google and the fact that Yahoo’s page has a purple scheme while Google’s is more of a light blue. That goes to show how much effort the two companies really put into promoting their own “specialized” versions of Internet Explorer 7. 
News Source: Google Operating System
They were probably paid by Microsoft to do this. They’re desperate and scared that Firefox is going to become more popular than IE.
See also: [google.com]
That’s what everyone believes but I’m sure Google’s goal in doing this is to get their search engine into Internet Explorer 7.
Is WGA still necessary or the installation doesn´t require it?
I haven’t tried so I can’t verify but I am sure that WGA activation is still required.
Actually, Google copied Yahoo. You can see the Yahoo toolbar in the Google screen shot. If you look very closely you can see the “blurred” out red Y! on the google image. Check out the TechCrunch story:
[techcrunch.com]
That’s hilarious. This either proves that MS is terribly sloppy or Google doesn’t care at all about MS. Probably the former, because I doubt Google would intentionally copy Yahoo!, for fear of getting sued.
Yeah, but Yahoo! is a bigger competitor, and Google has no intention of losing valuable toolbar marketshare to them, especially because most of their users use IE. Plus, some people will always use IE (for whatever irrational reason), and it’s better for everyone (including Google) if those people are using a standards compliant browser.
As a side note, Google should redo their toolbar pages. They look kinda old, very Web1.0-ish. Not very attractive at all. Tsk-tsk.
Google copying yahoo, Can’t believe it
Today this page looks different: [google.com]
Picture, copied from Yahoo is gone.
Google sucks. Yahoo rocks!