Download This: Google Faster, Browse Better, and Enjoy Epic IM
Tools for faster Web searches, tabbed browsing, and using instant messaging to fight evil.Laura Blackwell
Welcome to Download This, your guide to the towering stacks of the PCWorld.com Downloads library. No need to whisper--these files are worth shouting about. This month we check out an easy-access Google tool, a spiffy Web browser, and instant messenger icons fused with pop culture icons.
Agog at the Joys of Google
The kindly mad scientists at Google Labs are still tinkering with the insanely useful Google DeskBar, but that doesn't mean you need to keep your distance from the little monster. DeskBar does the popular Google Toolbar one better by allowing you to run a Google search without even launching your browser.
It does this by putting a 2-inch search box in the Windows taskbar, giving you just enough room to type in a search string--and, if you like, use the menu or keystrokes to specify a search of Google's Froogle pricing engine, Google News, the entire Web, or any of a number of other options. The results pop up in a small window you can expand into a full-screen browser window. Like its big brother Toolbar, the Google DeskBar is free, but it requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher.
Whose IE?
If you're the type of Web surfer who likes to jump between lots of open browser windows, you've probably noticed that your Windows taskbar gets pretty crowded with tiny, increasingly illegible buttons--or, if you use Windows XP, you get just one button for all your browser windows. Just visiting news sites and other daily stops can make windows proliferate like rabbits. Enter MyIE2, a browser from the aptly named MyIE2 Team (no connection to Microsoft). One window of MyIE2 comfortably holds a dozen Web pages open and marks them neatly with tabs, leaving your taskbar tidy.
MYIE2 is packed with handy little features, but its treatment of bookmarks is a personal favorite. You can ask it to open an entire folder of bookmarks at once. If you have a well-worn circuit of essential sites, this can save you time and keep you from missing the latest news or your favorite Web comic strip. I created folders for each day of the week, putting into each one sites that update on that day.
MyIE2 is "donateware." If you like the program and decide to keep it, it would be awfully decent of you to donate money to the MyIE2 team. Then you wouldn't feel guilty about hiding the program's nag window.
Take Aim Against the Forces of Evil
J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings hit the big time when it hit the big screen as Peter Jackson's film trilogy. The extended DVD of The Two Towers clocks in just shy of four hours, but it's flying off shelves faster than a Ringwraith that's spotted something round and shiny. If you can't wait until the final installment of the saga, The Return of the King, storms onto screens later this month, you can get a spoiler-free (and just plain free) taste now using AOL Instant Messenger icons from the film's distributor, New Line Cinema.
With AIM open, go to our downloads page and click on the character you want to use as your icon--conflicted Frodo, mysterious Galadriel, regal Aragorn, creepy but pitiful Gollum, or any of thirteen other humans and creatures that inhabit Tolkien's richly imagined universe. The icon will automatically download and install. All seventeen of the new images are from the upcoming film, and a few characters make their AIM debut. These icons are just the thing to put you in the mood while making movie-going plans with your friends. Oh, yesssss, my Precioussss.
PCWorld.com's Senior Downloads Producer Max Green contributed to this story.