Yahoo Builds Toolbar for Firefox

In yet another sign of the growing support behind Mozilla's Firefox, Yahoo has released a beta version of its toolbar for the open source Web browser. Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox closely mirrors its companion for Internet Explorer, only lacking the company's Anti-Spy feature and support for International Yahoo IDs.

Although Firefox runs on Mac OS X and Linux as well, Yahoo says the toolbar has only been cleared to work on Windows. "We are working on fixing known problems, so please check toolbar.yahoo.com again in the future for Mac and Linux support," the company says.

Additionally, Yahoo hinted that it may also support Mozilla and Netscape browsers in the near future.

Yahoo is the first major search engine to support Firefox with its toolbar; MSN and Ask Jeeves only work with IE. Despite serving as the default Web site for Firefox, Google has yet to release its toolbar for the up-and-coming Web browser. Google has, however, begun showing support for Firefox.

In January, Google hired two Mozilla developers, including Firefox lead engineer Ben Goodger, to join its ranks. But Google has allowed both new employees to donate half their time to work on Firefox, indicating the search giant has future plans for the Mozilla platform.