Tips, tricks, tools, and techniques for Microsoft Office

Add-in Internet Explorer toolbars are a dime a dozen these days. The good news is that they’re free, so there’s little investment (except your time) when experimenting to find one you like.

Let us save you some time. Advanced Searchbar offers hundreds of places to go on the Web, plus the ability to choose from a variety of search engines. But unlike some toolbars that burden you with long lists you have to scroll through, you can customize AS to list just those you want from a list of 219 options.

Figure 1. Click to enlarge

Advanced Searchbar provides an area for you to enter your search term, then select from your short list of preferred search engines. Unfortunately, you can’t search multiple engines at once (it won’t search Google and Yahoo and combine the results, eliminating duplicates), though it does let you search using Dogpile, which can perform such feats.

Beyond the typical search feature, Advanced Searchbar offers a different take on toolbars. You select from a variety of main categories (Sports, Travel, Kids, Video Providers) that appear on the toolbar as text and/or icon menu items, then choose from a list of predefined sites to appear under each category in a pulldown menu (see Figure 1). For example, in the news category you can pick from among the leading news sites in (primarily in the U.S. and U.K.), such as CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the New Zealand Herald, and BBC News. (See options for the Health category button in Figure 2.)

When installing the program, you’re presented with a long series of check boxes that helps you get started. This may seem overwhelming at first but as you choose the categories and sites within each category, the program immediately adjusts to reflect your choices. You’re not limited to only the categories and sites shipped with the program. If you don’t see a favorite site among those listed, you can configure a main-menu item (for example, The Office Letter) and then define the sites to be listed in the pull-down menu, such as Current Issue, Previous Issue, and so on (see Figure 3) . You can also define a main menu to match a topic of interest, such as “Office Tips”, then use the pulldown menu to define the different sites you visit (you’d put The Office Letter at the top of the list, of course).

Figure 3 -- Click to enlarge

The program isn’t just about offering shortcuts to Web sites and search engines. In addition to the standard features found in most toolbars (pop-up blocking, filling in forms automatically), Advanced Searchbar offers buttons or menus to erase your browser’s tracks, shred files, protect your home page from being changed, launch your screensaver, or open your e-mail client.

The company says the program contains no adware, no spyware, and no malware. I found no objections from three spyware-removal programs after installing the program.

Advanced Searchbar is filled with plenty of popular sites to get you started, and plenty of flexibility to let you add or modify the menus to suit your particular surfing habits. And you can’t beat the price.

To download AdvancedSearchbar, visit http://www.advancedsearchbar.com.

-- James E. Powell

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