Foboz 1.50 has now been released.

Foboz 1.50 is an optional free update to Foboz 1.00, containing the following changes:

• The option to integrate a toolbar into Internet Explorer allowing you to search directly from your Web Browser.
• A number of minor bug fixes to searching.

Note that this release contains no changes to the Foboz core search engine parsing system and hence all engine updates that get automatically downloaded by Foboz will continue to run with the 1.00 release.

An Alpha of Foboz with a toolbar that integrates the powerful search capabilities of Foboz into Internet Explorer is available for download from this link:

Toolbar Download

The Alpha contains what is in effect a service release of Foboz with some minor improvements, along with the Explorer Toolbar. The toolbar itself is in Alpha status. e.g. please only use it, if you do not mind reporting any issues to us, as we fully expect there will be some.

We released a first Alpha yesterday and that resulted in a number of bug reports and 6 bug fixes in todays release. Whilst at this precise second in time the current Alpha release has no known issues, it is more than likely that you will be asked to download a new version if not tomorrow then the next day.

On the other hand should you participate, then you will have our gratitude and the chance to make suggestions prior to the actual release.

Foboz Meta Search Engine Toolbar

We have begun work on a Foboz toolbar for Internet Explorer and other browsers. This will be a free upgrade that will allow you to do a Foboz Search Direct from your browser.

As of today new search engines for the Foboz - Meta Search Engine will only be available to users who are using the latest 1.00 version which is available as a free upgrade.

This saves us the trouble of considering the compatibility of our search engine definitions with the Beta releases of Foboz.

For more reasons to make the free upgrade, check this list.

One of the reasons for this decision is that out of the current 347 Foboz Search Engines, 66 are not compatible with the last widely used Beta release version 0.98. So to get the best results this upgrade is very important.

One of the dilemmas when adding search engines to the Foboz - Meta Search Engine is the question of which search category the engine should be placed in.

Todays' example of this issue was the American Journal of Botany a web site rather more deserving of a science categorisation than of a gardening one.

In the end we have placed in under gardening but we have used the Foboz keyword system to try and direct general web searches towards this engine when appropriate.

his is in our opinion one of the best features of Foboz, that ability to cherry pick from the best and most suited of hundreds of difference search engines.