Add-on Guidelines and Requirements in Action – Google Toolbar

Good add-ons are an important aspect of keeping IE running stable and fast. We made managing add-ons easier for users. We also made developing quality add-ons easier with clear guidelines and requirements for add-on developers.

When users can stay in control of their browser and their information, everyone is better off.   The IE guidelines and requirements are designed not only to aid in easier and faster development of add-ons but also to prioritize user control and protection of privacy.  As a result, when developers consistently follow the guidelines and requirements, users have a better experience.

Google recently released a new version of their Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer (and started their auto-updating process) with a few improvements worth noting:

• Pressing the toolbar close button now offers an option to disable the Google Toolbar permanently, not just hide it. Previous versions allowed users to hide the toolbar, but the toolbar code still ran. Selecting the close button option in the new version displays a close dialog for the Google Toolbar, which is consistent with the default toolbar disable experience in IE8.
• The Google Toolbar no longer modifies the IE new tab page, resulting in a predictable new tab experience for users.

Many thanks to the Google Toolbar team for their work here. We’re encouraged to see more add-on developers (following the Crawler Toolbar and AVG Security Toolbar) provide more predictable, reliable experiences for our shared customers. Developers contribute to a consistent and reliable experience in IE when they use only the supported, documented extensibility points.

- Marc Silbey and Herman Ng