Yahoo Launches Surprise Web Browser Plug-In: Axis

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Yahoo has taken web users and tech bloggers by surprise, launching its own free web browser plugin, “Axis” on Thursday. The concept is that Axis allows users to bypass searching on Google.

Instead, Yahoo’s Axis shows up as a black search query bar on the bottom of a user’s current browser screen. Users can enter keywords or queries into the field and it expands horizontally to show a “thumbnail” images of webpages related to that search term. Here’s a screenshot snapped by TPM below: 

To be fair, Yahoo’s hot new product is not actually a full browser so much as it is an add-on for other popular browsers — Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Apple Safari. There’s also a mobile app for the iPhone and iPad, which relies on those devices’ built-in Safari webkit browser as well. 

But the move is certainly an attention-grabbing one from Yahoo, which has lately made headlines for much worse reasons, such as the inglorious firing of CEO Scott Thompson, who’s resume contained false credentials, and its ongoing patent battle with Facebook. Yahoo also isn’t ruiling out releasing a full web browser of its own, according to a Yahoo product manager who spoke to TechCrunch.

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