I’ve just posted a new build of Googlebar Lite. This build drops support for Firefox versions prior to 17.0, to stay in step with what Mozilla officially supports. The full change log is shown below:

• Search terms entered into private browsing windows are no longer saved to the search history
• The minimum supported Firefox version has been changed to 17.0
• Bumped the maxVersion to 30.*
• Removed all private browsing detection and observation logic, since those interfaces have been deprecated
• Removed the one and only reference to the nsiPrefBranch2 interface, since it has been deprecated
• Bug Fix: The video search option should no longer result in a 404 page not found error
• Bug Fix: Logical operators (AND / OR) should no longer be highlighted when search term highlighting is enabled
• Bug Fix: Open and close parentheses are now filtered out from search terms

Version 4.9.7 of Googlebar Lite has just been posted, fixing the following issues:

• Various internal code improvements
• Bug Fix: Disabling the “Remember last combined-menu search type” option will now reset the combined search button properly
• Bug Fix: Doing a news search when no search terms are present will now take you to the Google News homepage as intended

A new release of Googlebar Lite is now available. Here’s what’s new:

• Bug Fix: The news search type should no longer result in a “page not found” error
• Bug Fix: Dragging a link to the search box no longer pastes the URL, but the link text instead

I have just posted a new build of Googlebar Lite, fixing a small bug in the process. Here’s the change log:

• Bug Fix: Corrected a problem that prevented the “Paste and Search” option from appearing in the search box context menu

A new release of Googlebar Lite is now available. Here’s what has changed:

• Simplified the drag and drop implementation to use a newer, more portable interface
• Improved the means by which URLs are loaded
• Improved the way dynamic XUL elements are created
• Improved the way events are handled for dynamic XUL elements
• The minimum supported Firefox version has been changed from 4.0 to 10.0
• Miscellaneous code improvements
• Bug Fix: The shopping search type now works properly
• Bug Fix: The news search type now passes the search query through properly

I was alerted yesterday to the fact that the newest version of Googlebar Lite had a few locale issues. I have corrected these, and a new version is now available. If you spot any more problems of this nature, let me know.

A new release of Googlebar Lite is now available. Here’s the change log for this release:

• Improved the customizability of the search box keyboard shortcut.
• Changed the default search box focus key from ‘S’ to ‘O’ (to avoid a conflict with the new developer bar).
• Improved the use of the nsITransferable interface, to be compatible with the upcoming changes to private browsing.
• Bumped the maxVersion to 25.*.
• Bug Fix: A new tab is no longer opened if the user has the “Open search results in a new tab” option checked, and the current tab is on “about:newtab”.

A small update to Googlebar Lite has just been posted. This release fixes a bug that caused the toolbar to shut down anytime toolbar customization took place. Here’s the full change log:

• Made a few minor improvements to the installer manifest.
• Removed the embedded JAR file from within the XPI.
• Bumped the maxVersion to 20.*
• Bug Fix: Corrected an issue that was causing the toolbar to shut down after toolbar customization.

A new build of Googlebar Lite is now available. This release contains a number of improvements, some of which use methods not available prior to Firefox 4.0. As such, Googlebar Lite no longer includes support for Firefox 3.x. Here’s the full list of changes. Let me know if you spot a problem in this release.

• Native secure search should now work for the following top-level domains: google.co.uk, google.fr, and google.de
• Secure image searches can now be performed
• Added google.cz and google.si to the list of top-level domains
• The minimum supported Firefox version has been changed from 3.6 to 4.0
• Googlebar Lite no longer overrides the built-in toolbar customization function
• Removed obsolete contents.rdf files from each localization folder, reducing overall file size
• Bug Fix: Googlebar Lite is now initialized properly after adding the main Googlebar Lite toolbar item during toolbar customization
• Bug Fix: Googlebar Lite is now shut down properly after removing the main Googlebar Lite toolbar item during toolbar customization
• Bug Fix: Errors should no longer be thrown after removing the main Googlebar Lite toolbar item during toolbar customization
• Bug Fix: The routine for migrating old preferences should no longer be called on every startup
• Bug Fix: Updated redirection rules for several items in the Google Links menu, as well as when clicking toolbar buttons with no search terms, when the use secure search option is enabled
• Bug Fix: The “site to use” menu item in the Googlebar Lite options dialog should now be properly initialized on new installs

Since the demise of the official Google toolbar for Firefox, I’ve been getting a number of requests to add the “form auto-fill” and “form spell checking” features from that official toolbar to Googlebar Lite. I will not add either feature to this extension, simply because they are beyond the scope of the extension’s purpose. Neither feature has anything to do with searching the web, which is the sole purpose of Googlebar Lite. If you want these two features, you need to look elsewhere.

Keep in mind that Googlebar Lite existed long before Google offered an official toolbar for Firefox. I created Googlebar Lite as a light-weight alternative to the Googlebar, not as a response to anything Google did. My primary goal with Googlebar Lite has been, and always will be, to keep it as small and bloat-free as possible. Adding features that have nothing to do with using Google’s search platform only add bloat. As such, I will not be implementing them here.