The Bottom Line
GooglePreviewIE is a toolbar for Internet Explorer which inserts thumbnail images of web sites directly into both Google and Yahoo search results. Also containing a pop-up blocker and enhanced search functionality, the toolbar lets you easily preview the look and feel of a site without actually visiting it.
Pros
- The preview images greatly enhance the search result features of Google and Yahoo.
- The images are a decent size but do not intrude on the descriptions and the rest of the information.
- The built-in search feature contains a good sampling of sites to choose from.
- The pop-up blocker informs you when it blocks something and counts how many pop-ups it has blocked.
- Being able to set the maximum previews per page can encourage faster load times.
Cons
- People who use search engines other than Google and Yahoo will not have much use for this toolbar.
- The maximum previews per page can only be set to predefined amounts.
- Some preview images are outdated.
- There is no way to add more sites to the search feature's drop-down list.
- On slower connections, the search results may take significantly longer to display due to images.
Description
- GooglePreviewIE is a toolbar add-on for Internet Explorer which displays images of site previews in search results.
- Thumbnail images of web sites are displayed adjacent to their link and description on Google and Yahoo's search result pages.
- The preview images, usually 111x82 in size, are provided by thumbnails.org and alexa.com.
- The toolbar contains its own search box, which maintains a history of your past searches in a drop-down menu.
- The search feature can return results from a large number of predefined sites such as Amazon, Wikipedia, and YouTube.
- An integrated pop-up blocker can be easily toggled on and off via a button on the toolbar, which displays the amount blocked.
- The maximum number of previews per page can be specified in intervals ranging from 5-100.
- The search feature returns default results in its own "Google-style" pages.
Guide Review - GooglePreviewIE
Like the majority of web users, I spend an exorbitant amount of time using search engines. At times the volume and overall vagueness of some of the results that are returned can be a bit overwhelming. What can be done to alleviate some of the clutter that is these site names and descriptions? Since they supposedly say a thousand words, why not add pictures? With the GooglePreviewIE toolbar, each result that is returned includes a small picture of the site itself. This makes it a lot easier to get a better understanding of what each result is all about. I find that this simple addition really spices up my search results. However, if I want to utilize an engine other than the "big two", I get no images. Also, the thumbnails are a decent size but it would be nice if they expanded when you hover over them. In regards to speed, those of you on dial connections may encounter a bit of a lag when waiting for your search results. However, decreasing the number of previews per page can lessen the load when it comes to that. The integrated search is pretty good, and the pop-up blocker is standard yet effective. If you use Google or Yahoo for your searches, this toolbar is a nice addition to your IE browser.
