Free Search Bar Also Blocks Pop-Ups

YP.Com, a yellow pages Web site, has released a free Internet Explorer toolbar that performs searches across several engines and effectively blocks pop-ups.

The YP.Com Toolbar enables you to search with the same criteria through Google, eBay, Amazon, and other sites. The toolbar is available for download or from yp.com. It runs with Microsoft Windows XP and 2000.

Benign Status Confirmed

When YP announced its toolbar, the company emphasized that it "is not spyware." But we at PC World knew we had to check it out.

I installed the toolbar and ran it with ZoneAlarm ready to report all suspicious Internet activity. I scanned my hard drive with freshly updated versions of Ad-aware and Spybot Search & Destroy. I examined how the installation program altered the Registry, and showed those changes to people more knowledgeable than me. I could find nothing suspicious.

Well, almost nothing. One disturbing fact: neither the program nor the company's Web site have a privacy statement. YP.Com Chief Technologist John Raven promises to post one, and offers this quick, verbal policy: "We implement no spyware and no cookie. We retain no information" on individual users. The company does save search information in aggregate (how many users search for this type of information, how many for that type, and so on).

Search Trails

So if YP.Com isn't charging for the toolbar or collecting personal information, and it blocks rather than displays advertising, what's in it for the company? The answer is promotion and name recognition. "We hope to attract traffic," Raven says.

And sure enough, the toolbar tries to direct you to YP.Com's own yellow pages site. Its first and most colorful button brings you right there. The Search button also takes you to YP.com. If you enter a word into the toolbar's search field and then click one of these two buttons, it will go to YP.com and insert that word into the page's Find field.

Other buttons and menu options bring similar results. If you select Google from the Search menu, for instance, you'll get the results of a Google search on your entered criteria. The eBay option will bring you auction items. Other options will search through various sites for books, photos, songs, or dictionary definitions.

Oddly enough, this search integration doesn't work for News. Click the News button, and you get the front page of USA Today, without reference to whatever you've put in the search field. That applies to all other sites on the News menu, such as CNN, BBC, and the Weather Channel.

If you prefer the New York Times to USA Today, you won't be getting your news through YP.Com; the menus aren't user-configurable. According to Raven, the sites listed are the ones users visit the most--and with names like Google and Amazon.com, it certainly is a who's who of Web success stories. But he also acknowledges that some of these sites are YP.Com business partners.

Pop-Up Free Surfing

The best thing about the YP.Com Toolbar is the Pop-up Blocker. After all, we'd all prefer to search the site or sites of our choice without having our findings blocked by ads.

No blocker stops every type of pop-up, but this one proves surprisingly effective. (It even blocks the ads on PCWorld.com).

However, this only applies to users of Windows XP and 2000--in fact, the toolbar's installation rendered my Windows 98 test system thoroughly unusable. Raven confirms the program is compatible only with Windows 2000 and XP, but this is not mentioned on the Web site or in the installation routine.

On the other hand, uninstalling the YP.Com Toolbar is thorough--both with Windows XP and Windows 98. Removing it from the Windows 98 system completely solved the problem--a pleasant surprise. It's rare that uninstalling a program actually fixes the serious damage done by installing it.