1. Introduction
2. What is a Toolbar?
3. How Toolbars Work
4. Why Toolbars are Free
5. Google Toolbar

Why Toolbars are Free

The business case for free toolbar distribution

Now that you understand what a tool bar is and how they work, you're probably wondering why companies give them away for free. What's the business case for doing so? Surely they're not just being altruistic!

There are many reasons why companies give away toolbars. Here are the main reasons:

• Traffic Generation. The Google Toolbar, for example, sends traffic to Google's site by making it easy to initiate a search without having to load the Google home page.
• Corporate Branding. A toolbar branded with the corporate/product name/logo is good publicity if it's installed by many people. Toolbars often generate goodwill for the company by providing useful services.
• Traffic Analysis. The Alexa Toolbar gathers statistical information about the surfing habits of the people using its toolbar and uses that information to determine site popularity. Because it's part of the browser, a tool bar has access to information that website owners cannot glean from their own sites.

Certain toolbars collect and send information back to the companies that release them. You should always read the license agreement for the toolbar before installing it to make sure you understand what kind of information the toolbar gathers about you and your surfing habits.

Note: Not all toolbars gather information. Some are just sets of useful tools and shortcuts. Toolbars that do collect data about browser usage often have a way to turn off their data gathering and reporting features. Also, much of the information that is collected is collected in an aggregate fashion that is not individually traceable to any particular toolbar user.