Yahoo Inc. said yesterday it has released a test version of its toolbar for the Mozilla Firefox Web browser. Toolbars are quite helpful in the navigation process as they offer inbuilt search-engines connected to the main search tool on their websites, but also pop-up blockers and several other tools.

Firefox is doing great in giving IE a good beating and taking away users "grounded" for so long to use a browser that gets patched more or less on a weekly basis.

A fifth of the UK's 35 million business and home internet users are predicted to switch from Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser to Mozilla's open source Firefox product before the end of the year. Firefox isn't full-proof, as no browser can be, and considering most users run it on a Windows based computer, the risk of being attacked by a hacker is still present.

But due to the numerous amount of extra-gadgets attached to the open-source browser, and the speed it offers, many chose to dump old IE for the new kid. And Yahoo wants a piece of the action, hence the Firefox Yahoo Toolbar.

The Yahoo Toolbar Beta for Mozilla Firefox is currently available for Windows, with versions for Mac OS X, Linux and Yahoo Anti-Spy expected shortly, Yahoo said. Key features include bookmarks and custom buttons that follow users anywhere, so that they do not lose bookmarks when switching browsers or logging on from different locations such as at home or work.

Other features include "Search this site" to find results just for the current Web site being browsed, "Translate this page" based on the Babel Fish translation tools, mail notification/alerts when new Yahoo mail arrives, and one-click "Add to My Yahoo" on sites that provide RSS/Atom feeds.

"Firefox has been downloaded more than 23 million times since its launch in November and the Yahoo Toolbar release demonstrates the popularity of the browser and the success of the Mozilla platform", said Mitchell Baker, president of the Mozilla Foundation.