Yahoo! Companion - Why I love it!
Written: Nov 03 '00 (Updated Nov 26 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Bookmarks available anywhere, common toolbar
Cons: still looking for one
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| yrium's Full Review: Yahoo! Companion |
Let me explain what the versatile Yahoo! companion is. It is a plug-in for both Netscape's and Microsoft's web browsers. After you install the Yahoo! companion, which only takes a minute, you have a quite useful toolbar attached to your browser.
I can hear you thinking... Whats the big deal, I already have a toolbar attached to my browser. It has my buttons for Home, Refresh, Search, Favorites, etc... The difference is this toolbar is portable. That means two minutes after sitting down to a computer that you've never even seen before, you can have your personal toolbar available to you. All the common web services you use every day will now be available to you no matter what computer you are using. You'll never again be at a friend's house talking about a cool website you just found but darnit!... you can't remember the url to the site.
How do I install Yahoo! companion? Its very easy. Simply enter the following url in your location bar...
http://edit.yahoo.com/config/download_companion
This will bring up the companion's install page. You'll want to press the button titled "get Yahoo! companion now". This will download and install the toolbar on your machine. I've probably installed this on a dozen machines with no problems. It works on the following Window's platforms: Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, and Windows 2000. (thanks go to awoolcot for letting me know about Windows ME compatibility)
How does it know your settings on each and every computer you use it on? When you first install the toolbar there will be a SIGN IN button. You enter your Yahoo! user-id and password and all your toolbar settings are downloaded into the toolbar. It just takes a second. If you've never obtained a Yahoo! user-id nows the time. It doesn't cost you anything and only takes a moment to sign up for.
What is on the toolbar? Starting from the left side and working my way to the right...
Yahoo! homepage - is represented by a big pretty red Y! It takes you to www.yahoo.com
Edit toolbar settings - is represented by a pencil. Pressing this button brings up a pop-up menu that allows you to add/edit toolbar buttons, change order of buttons, change color scheme, bring up help, and uninstall the toolbar. If your just using a friend's P.C. you can install the toolbar, use it for a while, and then uninstall it. Total time to install & uninstall is just a couple of minutes.
Toggle toolbar type - is represented by a lunchbox symbol. You can change from the default bar that I'm describing here to one that is stock ticker oriented.
Message indicator - is represented by a little yellow bell. Clicking on it will tell you how many new emails you have in your Yahoo! email account. You are also able to go directly to your inbox from here.
Search tool - represented by a little magnifying glass followed by a text input field. Typing your search criteria here and hitting enter will search thru Yahoo!'s database and bring up their regular results pages.
Bookmarks - represented by a little open book with a tiny bookmark present. This is my favorite feature of the Yahoo! companion toolbar. I've accumulated hundreds of bookmarks and I use them at home on either one of my two computers there as well as my computer at work. I never have the problem of adding a bookmark at home and then when I get to work not remembering the link, cuz now whenever I add a bookmark anywhere I can then use it everywhere. Don't tell Yahoo! but if they started to charge for this feature I'd line up to pay for it. I find it that useful.
The rest of the toolbar is user configurable. You can pick from a wide host of Yahoo! services. Currently I have buttons for MY Yahoo!, Address Book, Notepad, Maps, and Calendar. These are all services that you can get by navigating from the main www.yahoo.com page, but the buttons make it so much faster to get to where you want to go.
I heartily recommend Yahoo! companion. Give it a try.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
yrium
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Member: charles simons
Location: Escondido California
Reviews written: 16
Trusted by: 10 members
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