Google toolbar installed?

[Brian Turner]

I'm just wondering how many people actually have the Google toolbar installed?

I have it installed in Internet Explorer - but nowadays I do almost all my surfing in Mozilla FireFox, and I don't have the Google toolbar installed on that (I'm not sure it's possible, actually).

Either way, although it's nice to check up on the PR of specific sites at specific times, we're effectively talking about a piece of spyware here - something that monitors user behaviour, and all free research for Google in their development of "client-centered search advertising" (think about the Lexus ads to Tom Cruise's character early on in the film "Minority Report").

Of course, Google knows that PageRank has become a big Public Relations factor in the Google brand, so they're happy to see the issue pushed.

However, if PR has effectively become meaningless, then is there any real reason to keep using the Google Toolbar?