Google Toolbar causes problems with IE

Annie,

let me begin by stating simply that I don't have a fix to offer.

sometimes, weird things just happen without any reasonable explanation.    for example, after using Yahoo! toolbar for many years on my older ME system, I finally (and reluctantly) uninstalled it, when it became clear it was causing crashes in IE(6).   Yet I continue to (successfully) use the Yahoo! toolbar on all of my other (XP) machines with IE (6 and 7) and firefox.

if you feel the problem was specifically with the latest update, i guess you can consider going back to an older version, which should be available in the list in the right-hand column here:

http://www.filehippo.com/download_google_toolbar_ie/

before doing so, keep in mind that these older versions presumably will either offer you the option to upgrade to a newer/newest version, or perhaps automatically do so.    also, the question is whether the newer versions were implemented to offer you more features, or actual security fixes --- if they include security fixes, you will lose out by reverting to an earlier version.

-- David

I have google tool bar running fine on IE7 on my XP SP3 laptop, IE8 on my win 7 boot and IE7 on Vista ultimate x64, and have not experienced any issues.

I am waiting untill it is released for FF 3 .

David and Davet50,  After making sure this system (Dimension 8300 with XP3) had no viruses/malware, etc., I have uninstalled and reinstalled the Google Toolbar again downloading the latest version. I noticed each time that Internet Explorer was slow to open or did not respond. If I could get IE to open clicking on links often led to nothing happening.  Even when clicking on any links contained in  email, I found that the links would not respond. \

 I also did a huge Google search. While I found that many others have encountered the same problem with the Google Toolbar both with Internet Explorer and FireFox I did not find any of the solutions given worked for me. I changed my start page, cleared temporary files, browser history, etc.  What I did find through trial and error is that if I turned off the Google Toolbar Notifier (BHO) then everything seems to be working as it should. I left the other Google BHO's enabled.  So I will report back if this does not hold true after working on this computer today. 

David ----thank you-you always come through with some good advice. If this does not work I will try your suggestion of reverting back to a previous version of the Google Toolbar.  Annie 

Annie,

glad you may have found a viable work-around.

the following thread also reports the Google Toolbar Notifier crashing IE7 (under Vista, with DEP [Data Execution Prevention] active):

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Toolbar/thread?tid=1a803c713860c8e0&hl=en

to summarize, the user there concluded "Disabling swg.dll as a BHO solves the problem; re-enabling it brings back the problem".

as best as i understand it, the purpose of the Notifier is to alert you if you (or some program you use) tries to change your default search engine from Google to anything else.   if that's all it does, then you really lose nothing by disabling it.

also, as best as I can tell, google recently updated my toolbar automatically (it did not ask me for permission... like you, i was satisfied with the existing version) --- if memory serves me, i realized this only when WinPatrol popped-up to advise me of changes being made.   In addition to the Toolbar Notifier, I also now have a Google "FastSearch"  Dictionary Compression BHO in IE; and an Updater Service (which I believe I have since set to Manual startup, rather than Automatic).   While I have not experienced the IE crash problems that are impacting you, I freely admit that I am not happy with programs that apparently install updates on their own... and I am also disturbed by the number of programs that are now adding-on multiple BHOs and/or services (as Java seems to have done, starting with version 1.6.0_11.

ah that could be the difference. I have never allowed the updater to run.

For anyone else having this problem here is a rather long thread.  It appears that the problem is with the updated Google Toolbar.