Google just killed a product that's been around for over 20 years

Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer is no more

One of the longest living Google products has just been sent to the company's infamous graveyard. You may not actively remember it, but the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer is no longer available for download. 21 years ago, it was conceived as a little add-on for the then most popular browser on the web that enhanced the experience with many neat and thoughtful features that have since long made their way into browsers themselves.

The toolbar's demise was spotted by Android Police alumnus Ron Amadeo over at Ars Technica. He originally wanted to write up an article for the tool's 21st birthday on December 11, but discovered that the addon was pulled and discontinued before he could publish his finished hands-on with what was probably the oldest Google product still in existence, other than the search engine itself. Granted, it's shocking enough that the toolbar stuck around as long as it did. Internet Explorer has become irrelevant, with Microsoft ending support starting in mid-2022, and the Google Toolbar itself has also long been anything but useable.

In the past, the toolbar extended Internet Explorer with direly needed features such as a search field (because you couldn't enter a query in the address bar back when the toolbar was released), a popup blocker (yep, that wasn't built-in, either), spell check, autofill, and Google Translate.

During his hands-on, Ron ran into plenty of error messages, with the program still referencing Google+ and an old version of the Google spell checker as well as displaying errors due to the Google website itself no longer supporting Internet Explorer. Basically, nothing but searching and logging in worked.

The one thing that stood out as positive was the fact that Google was incredibly transparent about data collection back when the toolbar was created. There was an easily accessible "Privacy" section in its options that allowed you to completely opt out of data collection, which is something that's become increasingly difficult to manage in Google services these days.

While the Google Toolbar was definitely an important piece of internet history that helped shape the way browsers behave today, it has long surpassed its usefulness — most, if not all of its features are now part of Chrome and other modern browsers, even including Internet Explorer itself, so there's not much anybody will be missing. If you'd still like to get a glimpse at how the Google Toolbar worked, be sure to check out Ars Technica's birthday hands-on.

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