How to Uninstall Google Toolbar

What is Google Toolbar?

Google Toolbar is a software plug-in for browsers that adds features related to Google Search and its related enhancements. Google had initially released it with the search feature in the toolbar and then added features like PageRank, Translate, Autofill, Gmail etc. Google Toolbar can be downloaded for free from the Google website and is available for all versions of Windows and Linux based OS.

How to uninstall Google Toolbar

Google Toolbar is officially released for Internet Explorer on Windows OS. Firefox has only the search feature built into the browser, and the toolbar can be installed on it for all OS platforms.

Internet Explorer

To uninstall Google Toolbar from Internet explorer, follow these steps –

  1. Close the Internet Explorer browser
  2. Click on Start and then click on Control Panel
  3. Select Program and Features in Win 7/ Vista or Add or Remove Programs in Win XP
  4. Choose Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer from the list of programs and then click on Change/Remove or Uninstall
  5. Close the browser and restart it again

This will remove the Google Toolbar from Internet explorer.

Firefox

Firefox installs plug-ins as extensions, and it is very easy to remove extensions from the Firefox browser. Google toolbar is treated as an extension, so follow these steps to remove it –

  1. Open the Firefox browser
  2. Click on Tools
  3. Click on Add-ons
  4. Click on the Extension tab
  5. Select Google Toolbar
  6. From the buttons, select Uninstall
  7. Restart the browser

If the Google toolbar extension still shows up, follow these steps to remove it –

  1. Start the Firefox browser
  2. Click on Help
  3. Click on Troubleshooting Information

    4. It will open a tab with all the information about the browser; under the Extensions section look for Google Toolbar for Firefox. It will display the ID on the right and the files related to Google toolbar will be stored in a folder with the same name as the ID. Follow these steps to delete it –

  4. Click on Open containing folder to open the profile folder
  5. Enter the Extensions folder
  6. Match the Google Toolbar ID with the folder and delete it
  7. Now close the Firefox browser and restart

Now all the instances of the Google Toolbar will be removed completely.

Google Toolbar is not yet released for Safari and Opera browsers. Safari is not designed to install plug-ins, and Opera has a widgets engine, so Google is yet to release a working widget of the Google Toolbar. Google’s Chrome browser does not have Google toolbar designed for it, and it just provides a series of functions which has a similar functionality like the Google toolbar.

Other Software – Plug-ins or extensions can sometimes be dangerous, as lot of malware target popular extensions like Google toolbar to infect a system. The malware enters the OS and download viruses to steal vital information from the system.

To counter this, you can download and install the StopZilla application. StopZilla is a powerful antispyware which can be employed to remove viruses and malware from a system. It not only removes the existing infections, but also helps shield the system from future infections.