Yahoo Shares with New Toolbar, Bookmarks

Yahoo has introduced new versions of its Toolbar and Bookmarks add-ons, enabling users to more easier save, organize, and share favorite Web sites.

Internet giant Yahoo today introduced new versions of its Yahoo Toolbar and Yahoo Bookmarks Web browser add-ons, aiming to make it simpler for users to save, organize, and search through their bookmarks, as well as share their favorite Web sites with friends and family.

“Today’s launch of the new, integrated Yahoo Toolbar and Yahoo Bookmarks with advanced features puts the Web at consumers’ fingertips,” said Tomi Poutanen, Yahoo Search’s director of product management. “By focusing on the Yahoo Bookmarks and del.icio.us brands we are able to deliver to consumers market-leading products for both personal and social bookmarking.”

The new Yahoo Toolbar offers a more prominent Bookmarks button and an immediate “Search suggest” feature which automatically finds relevant bookmarks as users type in the search box. Users can also personalize the toolbar through custom toolbar icons.

The new version of Yahoo Bookmarks offers a more interactive, drag-and-drop capable interface with thumbnail page images to help users quickly recognize and manage bookmarks. Bookmarks can be organized via traditional folder hierarchies or using tags; the new software offers help for users who aren’t familiar with tagging or del.icio.us-style bookmarking. A search feature peers into not only a bookmark’s title and URL but also the content of the bookmarked page, and users can share bookmarks using email or Yahoo Messenger.

The new toolbar and bookmarking software is available for free in the U.S., Taiwan, and Germany.