Google Toolbar: what happened, and why it shut down

Google Toolbar was a browser add-on, released for Internet Explorer on 11 December 2000, that put a Google search box, the PageRank meter and later a pop-up blocker, spell checker, autofill, translation and bookmarks into the browser. A Firefox version ran from 2005 to 2011. It was one of the most installed pieces of software of the 2000s and was quietly discontinued in December 2021, when Google took down its download page.

Timeline [edit]

2000

11 December 2000 Launch

Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer 5

A search box and the PageRank meter.

2003

24 February 2003 Version

Toolbar 2 blocks pop-ups

Internet Explorer had no blocker of its own.

2005

7 July 2005 Version

Google Toolbar for Firefox

Ended in July 2011.

2008

2 September 2008 other

Google Chrome launches

The Toolbar's ideas become a browser.

2011

19 July 2011 Decline

Firefox version discontinued

Internet Explorer only from here.

2015

2015 Version

Last update

2021

12 December 2021 Shutdown

Download page removed

Twenty-one years, no announcement.

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Google removed the Google Toolbar download page in December 2021, twenty-one years after launch and six years after its last update; the toolbar had only ever run in Internet Explorer since Firefox support ended in 2011, and Internet Explorer itself was months from retirement. There was no announcement. Its jobs, a search box, spell check, autofill, translation and pop-up blocking, had been built into every browser for a decade, and Chrome, Google's own browser, had never needed it.

Our analysis: The Toolbar was how Google got into the browser before it had one. In 2000 a search box on Internet Explorer's chrome was a genuine convenience, the PageRank meter made a generation of webmasters obsessive, and the 2003 pop-up blocker made it a must-have. It also taught Google what browsers could do for it, which is why Chrome exists. Once Chrome existed the Toolbar was a legacy add-on for the browser Google most wanted people to leave, and it was left to run down until there was nothing to remove but the page.

History [edit]

A search box on every page

Google announced the Toolbar on 11 December 2000: a free plug-in for Internet Explorer 5 that added a Google search box to the browser, highlighted your search terms on the page, and, if you turned it on, showed the PageRank of the page you were looking at as a small green bar. That bar became the obsession of the search-optimisation trade for a decade. Version 2, in February 2003, added a pop-up blocker when Internet Explorer had none, and installations went from millions to tens of millions; AutoFill, spell check, a translator, SpellCheck, Google Bookmarks, Gmail notifications and Sidewiki followed. Google paid PC makers and software bundlers to install it, and it was for years the largest single source of new Google searches that did not start on google.com.

A Firefox version arrived in July 2005. It was never as necessary, since Firefox had a search box and blocked pop-ups, and Google ended it in July 2011 when Firefox 5's rapid releases and Chrome's growth made it pointless. Chrome, launched in 2008, was in effect the Toolbar as a browser, and Google never made a Toolbar for it.

Twenty-one years

The Internet Explorer version kept working, updated less and less, its last release in 2015. Windows 10 shipped with Edge, Internet Explorer went into maintenance, and the Toolbar sat on toolbar.google.com as a curiosity that could still be installed, PageRank meter and all, until December 2021, when the page was taken down without a word. Ars Technica noticed. Internet Explorer itself was retired six months later.

The domain today

toolbar.google.com redirects to google.com.

Sources [edit]

Last verified: 16 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).

Google Toolbar