Internet toolbars are free software add-on programs that work with Internet Explorer. The programs actually attach themselves to your web browser. Toolbars come in a variety of formats, each having strengths and weaknesses. This article will attempt to give you some in-depth understanding of this relatively new technology and how a toolbar can help improve your experiences on the Internet.

To begin, let's take a look at snapshot of a typical browser window's header section:

Image 1 - Internet Explorer Header Section

As you see in image one above, the header is basically divided into five segmented rows. Each row is really a "toolbar" and has a different function. Depending on your version of Internet Explorer and how you set-up your header, you may have more or less rows, but you will typicall have an layout as shown above. Here's a brief explanation of each row:

• The first row is the Page Title. The information displayed on this row is set by the webmaster of the site you're visiting. At the end of the webmasters page title, you will always see the "Microsoft Internet Explorer" tag line.
• The second row contains the Internet Explorer menu options. These menus allow you to control various functions about your web browser.
• The third row is really redundant. It contains the most used menu items and they are represented with graphic images. The concept is that it will help you to navigate and use other freqently needed options with greater ease. You'll note that on my Internet Explorer, I've move the "Links" bar and my "Adobe" bar onto this row. You can move any bar up or down a row or onto another row simply using the drag and drop technique of Windows.
• The fourth row is knows as the "Address" bar. This is where you type in a website address manually if you like.
• Finallly, the fifth row shows the free Nurse-Recruiter.com/Alexa toolbar installed. This toolbar offers users a number of great advantages, and helps us too. The advantages of the bar will be discussed in greater detail below.

Of course, if you haven't downloaded a third-party toolbar like ours, you wouldn't have a fifth row, or your fifth row might look different. You may also be asking yourself at this point, why I would combine bars on to a single row. The answer is simple, the more rows or bars that you have, the smaller the area you have to view the "content" section in a browser window.

So what are the general advantages of a toolbar?

Well, most toolbars offer you an ability to use a built-in search engine. This advantage alone is well worth using a toolbar. For example, the Nurse-Recruiter toolbar has the Google.com search engine built-in. That means that you can do a Google search from anywhere on the Internet. You simply type your search text in the box located next to our logo and click the search button. You will be instantly taken to the results page for that search at Google.com. How does this save you time, simple, you don't have to navigate to Google.com in order to do your search.

Many of today's toolbars also have a built-in pop-up blocker. Of course this great tool offers you two advantages. First it speeds up you Internet browsing by preventing windows from loading in the background, which takes up time and resources (memory) on your computer. Secondly, in prevents you from having to close all those frustrating ad windows when you're done surfing on the Internet.

Most toolbars also give you instant access to the website that is sponsoring the bar. In this case, it would be Nurse-Recruiter.com. You simply click on our small logo located on the left side of the bar and you're immediately taken to our website.

From here on out, toolbars start getting very different. In fact, there are so many different options on what can be added to a toolbar, there is simply not time or space to cover them here. So instead, I'll just cover the features being offered on our toolbar.

The Nurse-Recruiter / Alexa toolbar delivered pateneded technology about the sites you visit. Notice just to the right of the "Search" button is an "Info" button. Click the down arrows and our bar will tell you the contact information for the owner of that site; provide you with the average rating for that site, with a link to read those reviews; a link that allows you to write a review of the site; and finally some statistics about the site.

Next to the "Info" button, you'll see either a number or "No Data". This number tells you that sites current ranking among more than 3.5 million ranked sites. The ranking is based on popularity or traffic. Number one is the best or most visited website on the Internet. If you click on that number, you will be taken to an Alexa page that gives you greater detailed information about the site you are visiting.

Next to the ranking number you'll see a file folder with arrows pointing up and right. If you click on this folder, you will see a list of sites that are related to the one you are visiting. These are sites that are in the same search category as the one you're currently visiting, so if you didn't find what you're looking for, it's easy to find other sites that might have what you want.

Next to the file folder, and depending on the resolution and size of your monitor, you'll see links to sites similar to the one you are currently visiting. In the picture above, there is just one shown, in reality on my monitor I see five or six links.

Next to the links you'll find the pop-up manager icon . Click on this button to see a report on the number of pop-up windows blocked by the toolbar. You can click on the link and alter the options for your pop-up blocker, or even turn it off it you like.

Next to the pop-up blocker is the mail this page to a friend icon . If you want to tell a friend or colleague about a site or a page that you found, you can click on the icon, and a form will appear that you can fill-out with your friends e-mail address, your name and a note. Click send and your friend will get a link to the page you found.

Next to the mail to button is the history icon . If you click the history icon, you'll be taken to a page at Way Back. Depending on how long that site has been on the Internet, you can see what previous versions of the site looked like. It's acutally kind of fun to see where we and others used to be.

Finally, you'll see the Amazon.com button . If you click on this button you will be taken directly to Amazon.com and do your online shopping. Okay, if you click on this link, you will be visiting the site via our affiliate link.

I hope you'll download the Nurse-Recruiter.com toolbar and give it a test drive. I think you'll find it a great tool. Like anything I recommend on the site, if I don't use it myself, I wouldn't recommend it to you or others. Click here to download our toolbar. If you don't like it, it's very easy to uninstall

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