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December 16, 2006

The Trouble with Google Toolbar for Firefox

Google Toolbar 3 for Firefox has been recently launched, so I was curious to try the new version.

I couldn't open any bookmark. They were listed, but clicking on any bookmak didn't have any effect. The only option that worked was "open in new tab".

I enabled the Docs & Spreadsheets integration, but when I clicked on a doc/xls file, I got a message that said: "Firefox is already running but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system." I tried restarting Firefox and the PC, but still nothing.

I reported the bugs to Google and here is the answer (partially edited):

Thank you for your note. We're sorry you're still having trouble using the Docs and Spreadsheets feature of Google Toolbar for Firefox. Many of our users report this. Please try the steps below:

1. Uninstall the Toolbar.
2. Open Firefox's "Tools" menu and then select "Add-ons."
3. Disable all the extensions in your "Add-ons" screen.
4. Restart your browser, then reinstall the Toolbar from http://toolbar.google.com.
5. If you're able to use the Docs and Spreadsheets feature, please enable your extensions, one by one, until you find the conflicting add-on. Please let us know which add-on caused the conflict.

Please let us know whether this resolves the problem.

I don't think this a good solution, as disabling all extensions and enabling them one by one is time consuming. But I tried to follow at least the first advice: uninstalling the toolbar. I clicked on "Uninstall", restarted the browser, only to see that the toolbar is still there. After restarting the browser, I got the intro dialog that asks you if you want to enable PageRank and other options.

27 comments:

  1. On my pc at home it always displays an error in the login window for bookmarks, stating that it could not talk to firefox, but it still logs me in anyway.

    I've also had problems with FF freezing, so I ended up uninstalling it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, I tried it and I am able to use bookmarks and Docs & Spreadsheets properly.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have the same problem with the bookmarks. When I changed the firefox theme this problem was gone.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I couldn't open any bookmark,either.
    I don't know what should I do...

    ReplyDelete
  5. I suppose I'm a lucky one and have never had any issues with FF/Google.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I don't have any issues with bookmarks. I do have issues with the spell check feature. On forms, it will do the spell check, but it wont turn off after I am finished using it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Does the current toolbar downloaded from toolbar.google.com hangs firefox 2? I've installed it and it constantly hangs my firefox.

    Any idea?

    ReplyDelete
  8. After installing the toolbar firefox was freezing again and again. No doubt that FF also started to work more slowly. So now without any problems I have uninstalled the toolbar.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I had a bad experience with the FF toolbar for Mac OS X. Lots of Firefox hangs requiring force quit, not functional enough to bother testing. Bleh. You'd be hard pressed to find a bigger google fanatic than I, but I'm getting an uneasy vibe lately.

    ...then they'll release Picasa for Mac and I'll quit feeling uneasy.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I uninstalled old version first then installed ver. 3. Bookmarks work fine (so far)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thats odd it works fine for me...

    ReplyDelete
  12. I use Firefox 2 / Win XP SP2.

    Extensions:
    DOM Inspector 1.8.1
    Errorzilla 0.2
    Google Notebook 1.0.0.11
    Greasemonkey 0.6.6.20061017
    Live HTTP Headers 0.13.1
    Platypus 0.66
    StumbleUpon 2.89
    Web Developer 1.0.2

    Theme: Noia 2.0 (eXtreme 3.34)

    It's the first time when I uninstall an extension by deleting the files from my profile.

    ReplyDelete
  13. All is good with my firefox toolbar. Bookmarks and docs open perfectly.

    ReplyDelete
  14. As much as I really love Google and all of its excellent products and services, I'll shy away from downloading the tool bar.

    My experience with earlier versions of the Google tool bar has developed into a severe pavlovian aversion to anything with Google and tool bar in the title. Serious memory leaks with the tool bar
    caused the Firefox browser to crash every half hour throughout the day until I was able to trace it
    back to the Google tool bar culprit.

    ReplyDelete
  15. How very MSFT of them....

    ReplyDelete
  16. After uninstalling, reinstalling, once and again all my extensions I found something for my surprise:

    Disable NOIA Theme and use FireFox's default theme... and there you go... google toolbar's bookmarks work again!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Switching to the default theme has solved the problem for me too.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Tried to download Google Tool Bar for Firefox many times. But each time I get the same message like.... Firefox prevented this site from asking u to install SW on ur PC. Even I tried the instructions given under to Check the Edit options, but then also I couldn't. I just ended my trials. Very Funny...... Uuuuu Google Tool Bar!!!

    ReplyDelete
  19. after starting my computer like every other day, there was a screen saying thank you for installing google toolbar, well I already had it,,,, and then when I went to go into my bookmarks..... they were all gone!!!!
    where did they go!!!! help.....
    thanks

    ReplyDelete
  20. hi me too facing various issues with the Google toolbar in firefox :(

    Its PR facility some times dont show the pr or sometimes start showing diffrent frm wht it actually is.. :-|

    Waitin for the Solutions..
    Kuntal Shukla 'kittu'

    ReplyDelete
  21. I have the same fricking problem as Debi. Google toolbar keeps installing after disabling/uninstalling/deleting google reg entries and rebooting. Hate it. It keeps installing when restarting FF and leaves me at the PageRank option page. Does anyone know where the google temp directory is to delete it also?

    ReplyDelete
  22. on my laptop i get the tool bar to work fine but no the pc it will not display at all even thow it is checkmarked

    ReplyDelete
  23. wtf? why can't i uninstall the Google toolbar? I never installed it, all i did was install Picasa2 and got more then i wanted.

    ReplyDelete
  24. freekin evil google, the toolbar installs itself every time I un-install it.

    wretched mozilla for letting them.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Why can't GOOGLE admit they have a problem and made a mistake and give us a fix? I called Google and was given a quick brush off and huing up on.

    ReplyDelete
  26. "We're Google. We don't care. We don't have to..."

    ReplyDelete

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