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Hack 19 The eBay Toolbar

Expand your browser with
eBay's custom toolbar application.

The eBay Toolbar, shown in Figure 2-7, is a free add-on program that provides a
handy search box, links to several key eBay pages, and two desktop
"alert" features.

Figure 2-7. The eBay Toolbar provides several handy tools, primarily useful for bidders, such as two "alert" features not otherwise available to non-toolbar-equipped browsers

Provided you're running a recent version of Windows
and using a new version of Internet Explorer or an old version of
Netscape Navigator, you can download the eBay Toolbar at pages.ebay.com/ebay_toolbar. (Users of
Mozilla, Netscape 6.x/7.x, Unix, or a Mac of any kind are out of
luck.)

In addition to providing handy links to My eBay, the Search pages,
the PayPal home page, and other hot spots, the eBay Toolbar also has
some features you won't find elsewhere:

The Search textbox keeps a history of the last few searches
you've typed (up to 25), which can be a quick and
easy way to save past searches (see [Hack #16]). But you have to use it
exclusively, as it doesn't link up with the My
Favorite Searches list and it will not save any search typed in the
site itself.

Bid Alerts notify you 10, 15, 30, 60, or 75 minutes before the end of
an auction on which you've bid, which is useful if
you wish to return to the auction to bid again and ensure a win.
Included in the Bid Alerts menu is a handy list of all the open
auctions on which you've placed at least one bid;
click Refresh Bid List if it appears to be out of date. Click the
little arrow next to the eBay logo and click eBay Toolbar Preferences
to customize this feature.

Watch Alerts work just like Bid Alerts, but apply to items in the
Items I'm Watching list (see [Hack #24]), which can be especially useful
for sniping (see [Hack #21]).

The Bookmarks feature works just like
Netscape's Bookmarks button and Internet
Explorer's Favorites menu. Probably its greatest
strength is that you'll be tempted to fill it with
links to eBay-related pages, reducing clutter in your
browser's own Bookmarks list.

Finally, there's a certain cachet to using a
customized, feature-rich toolbar right on your browser that simply
isn't available anywhere else.

If you're a Windows 95, Mac, or Unix user, or if you
use Netscape 6.x/7.x or Mozilla on any platform,
there's a very simple alternative to the eBay
Toolbar. Both Internet Explorer and Mozilla/Netscape have a fully
customizable Links toolbar, which can hold not only links to web
pages, but sport neat drop-down menus into which those links can be
organized. See [Hack #13] for a snazzy
little example.