OK, I think it is great that Google is so into embracing Firefox as a browser alternative. But I am not sure that I have seen anything being offered that would really compel me to download and install this toolbar.

Google has developed a toolbar for The Mozilla Foundation’s (Profile, Products, Articles) Firefox browser that contains almost all the features found in Google’s (Profile, Products, Articles) toolbar for Microsoft’s (Profile, Products, Articles) Internet Explorer browser, according to a company official.

The free toolbar will be available for download on Thursday at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time from http://toolbar.google.com, along with two free extensions for Firefox, which users will be able to download from http://labs.google.com, said Sundar Pichai, product manager of client software at Google.

The Firefox toolbar will have all features found on the IE toolbar, except for two that are already in the Firefox browser: a pop-up blocker and a “browse by name” functionality, which takes users to a Web site without having to enter the site’s address, just its name, he said.

Features in the Firefox toolbar include a box for conducting Google searches, an “auto fill” button that with a single click populates Web forms with the user’s address and credit card information, a spell checker and a word translator, he said. [Read the rest]