eBay Toolbar Alternatives
I have been occasionally selling items on eBay for a few years. Recently I decided to sell some items and noticed that eBay now has a toolbar for Internet Explorer. This toolbar allows me to track my auction items and it also has a feature called Account Guard that warns me if I'm on a fake eBay or or PayPal web site.
I decided to give this toolbar a whirl. However I noticed a number of problems that began right after the installation:
I quickly uninstalled the eBay toolbar, and did a full virus scan and spyware scan. My system was clean. I uninstalled the eBay toolbar and I haven't had a problem since.
I did some research into the eBay toolbar and discovered that there are some reports of problems with it under different versions of Windows, including the dreaded BSOD (blue screen of death!) under Windows XP SP2. I also came across a couple of other toolbars with similiar functionality in tracking my auction, MOOBar and LittleBigBar.
MOOBar
MOOBar is a supposedly spyware-free toolbar for IE that allows you to search eBay auctions. There is also a Firefox version available as well. It isn't quite as nice as the eBay toolbar for tracking auctions because any of your auctions have to be part of the search history. It will not automatically find all of your personal auction listings.
It does however have buttons that let you refine your eBay search to things like what field you want to search on, eBay USA vs the world, and whether you want to search all auction items or only "buy it now" items.
The reason I say MOOBar is "supposedly" spyware-free is that PestPatrol reports a spyware dialer program in both the installer and uninstaller. However the spyware isn't installed in the registry at this time, so it may be a false alarm. I wrote to the author about it but he has yet to respond. I'll update this article if he does, but for now MOOBar is off my list of acceptable software because of the spyware possibility.
LittleBigBar
LittleBigBar is a general purpose toolbar that has some handy features such as buttons that let you search over 60 search engines (including auction services like eBay), a popup blocker that works pretty well, a hilight search term button, and a button to toggle image viewing on or off. And the buttons are completely configurable.
Similar to MOOBar, you can enter your eBay auction number in the search field and hit the eBay button and LittleBigBar will quickly take you to your auction page. Again, this is not as slick as eBay's toolbar offering. If you are auctioning off multiple items, all you see are your auction numbers in the search pulldown, but no descriptions like the eBay toolbar. One excellent feature it does have is when you click the eBay button, it offers a menu of about 30 search options, including a list of searches by category. This is a lot quicker than searching through eBay's web site and can save you time.
LittleBigBar has a lot of configuration options, as well as a pulldown menu that offers a lot of help and support for the freeware product, such as report a bug or suggest a feature. This product appears to be well supported by its author, contains no spyware and seems to run without any glitches.
Conclusion
The eBay toolbar is the most functional toolbar for managing your eBay auctions because it uses your actual eBay login to list your personal auction items. It also includes the Account Guard which alerts you if you are on a non-eBay web site that tries to trick you into revealing your eBay information. However I found it to have some negative effects on my system, including slowdowns and making my antivirus icon disappear, so I cannot recommend it.
MOOBar is an eBay-specific toolbar with a version for both IE and Firefox, however until the spyware issue is resolved I cannot recommend it.
LittleBigBar is a general-purpose toolbar that includes excellent eBay support, it doesn't require your personal eBay account information which makes it safe to use, and it contains no spyware. It also includes a popup blocker and some other excellent search tools, and coexists peacefully with the Google toolbar. It does not have a Firefox version available. I would recommend giving it a try for its many search options, even if you do not use eBay.
I decided to give this toolbar a whirl. However I noticed a number of problems that began right after the installation:
- The Symantec antivirus icon disappeared from my taskbar
- IE began to run very slowly
- My new Firefox 1.o.1 download arrived corrupted
I quickly uninstalled the eBay toolbar, and did a full virus scan and spyware scan. My system was clean. I uninstalled the eBay toolbar and I haven't had a problem since.
I did some research into the eBay toolbar and discovered that there are some reports of problems with it under different versions of Windows, including the dreaded BSOD (blue screen of death!) under Windows XP SP2. I also came across a couple of other toolbars with similiar functionality in tracking my auction, MOOBar and LittleBigBar.
MOOBar
MOOBar is a supposedly spyware-free toolbar for IE that allows you to search eBay auctions. There is also a Firefox version available as well. It isn't quite as nice as the eBay toolbar for tracking auctions because any of your auctions have to be part of the search history. It will not automatically find all of your personal auction listings.
It does however have buttons that let you refine your eBay search to things like what field you want to search on, eBay USA vs the world, and whether you want to search all auction items or only "buy it now" items.
The reason I say MOOBar is "supposedly" spyware-free is that PestPatrol reports a spyware dialer program in both the installer and uninstaller. However the spyware isn't installed in the registry at this time, so it may be a false alarm. I wrote to the author about it but he has yet to respond. I'll update this article if he does, but for now MOOBar is off my list of acceptable software because of the spyware possibility.
LittleBigBar
LittleBigBar is a general purpose toolbar that has some handy features such as buttons that let you search over 60 search engines (including auction services like eBay), a popup blocker that works pretty well, a hilight search term button, and a button to toggle image viewing on or off. And the buttons are completely configurable.
Similar to MOOBar, you can enter your eBay auction number in the search field and hit the eBay button and LittleBigBar will quickly take you to your auction page. Again, this is not as slick as eBay's toolbar offering. If you are auctioning off multiple items, all you see are your auction numbers in the search pulldown, but no descriptions like the eBay toolbar. One excellent feature it does have is when you click the eBay button, it offers a menu of about 30 search options, including a list of searches by category. This is a lot quicker than searching through eBay's web site and can save you time.
LittleBigBar has a lot of configuration options, as well as a pulldown menu that offers a lot of help and support for the freeware product, such as report a bug or suggest a feature. This product appears to be well supported by its author, contains no spyware and seems to run without any glitches.
Conclusion
The eBay toolbar is the most functional toolbar for managing your eBay auctions because it uses your actual eBay login to list your personal auction items. It also includes the Account Guard which alerts you if you are on a non-eBay web site that tries to trick you into revealing your eBay information. However I found it to have some negative effects on my system, including slowdowns and making my antivirus icon disappear, so I cannot recommend it.
MOOBar is an eBay-specific toolbar with a version for both IE and Firefox, however until the spyware issue is resolved I cannot recommend it.
LittleBigBar is a general-purpose toolbar that includes excellent eBay support, it doesn't require your personal eBay account information which makes it safe to use, and it contains no spyware. It also includes a popup blocker and some other excellent search tools, and coexists peacefully with the Google toolbar. It does not have a Firefox version available. I would recommend giving it a try for its many search options, even if you do not use eBay.
posted by Peter at
9:05 AM
