Stepping up its competition with Google, MSN is launching an Internet Explorer (IE) toolbar with links to MSN services and a pop-up-window blocker. Available as a free download, the MSN Toolbar attaches itself to IE below the Address bar and features icons that link to various MSN services, many of which are already available (but not as prominently featured) in IE. The product aims to put more focus on MSN’s fast-growing advertising sales by driving more customers to MSN sites, perhaps at the expense of MSN's subscription services. In particular, pop-up-window blocking is a major selling point of the MSN Premium and MSN Plus subscription services, but users of the MSN Toolbar get almost identical functionality for free.

A search pane in the MSN Toolbar lets users search the Web or a particular domain using MSN Search, or search within MSN sites such as Encarta, MSNBC, and MSN Money, all without having to navigate to these sites. Other icons in the Toolbar enable users to highlight all instances of a particular word on the currently displayed Web page, go directly to their Hotmail inbox or My MSN personalized home page, and launch the MSN Messenger instant messaging client. (Users without that client are directed to a page where they can download it.) Once installed, the MSN Toolbar will automatically update itself when new versions are released.

The MSN Toolbar's search and pop-up-blocking features are very similar to those found in a Google Toolbar launched in 2000 and Yahoo’s Companion Toolbar, launched in Nov. 2003. Google has increasingly become a target for MSN because its popularity draws users away from MSN sites: in spring 2003, MSN announced plans to build a better search engine, and in November MSN began testing a news aggregation service, MSN NewsBot, that is very similar to Google News. At the same time, Google is encroaching on Microsoft's core business—PC software—with the Google Deskbar, which allows users to search Google without opening a Web browser by using keyboard shortcuts or by entering terms into a search pane on the Windows taskbar.

For more information and to download the MSN Toolbar beta, see toolbar.msn.com. The Google Toolbar is available at toolbar.google.com, and the Google Deskbar is available at toolbar.google.com/deskbar. The Yahoo Companion Toolbar beta can be found at toolbar.yahoo.com.