One of the most frequent questions I get from friends and clients is, "What's the best search engine?"

My hands-down favorite (and, near as I can tell, most other professionals') is Google (www.google.com).

The quality I like is its amazing ability to locate what you're looking for quickly and proficiently. Google is so popular among the tech-savvy that the verb "google" (to do a Web search using Google) has become part of American lexicon. Nowadays it's obligatory to "google" a prospective business partner, vendor or even dinner date and see what's out there on the Net.

One of its newer developments is the Google Toolbar, which is a plug-in to Internet Explorer. What's so cool about it? The toolbar appears at the top of your browser, and that makes it incredibly handy by allowing you to conduct a search on Google without surfing to the Google home page.

The toolbar has other great functions, the best being a pop-up ad blocker. Ad blockers have been around almost as long as pop-up ads but must be downloaded separately and often cost money. Furthermore, these ad blockers are not necessarily reliable.

Google Toolbar's pop-up blocker works well, and because it's free, it's worth a try. It operates in two modes - it will block pop-up ads you don't want and allow you to see the pop-ups you want, such as those that you open manually. In my estimation it's worth getting Toolbar just for this function.

There are other cool features such as a news site and an "autofill" button that automatically fills out online forms with your name, address, phone number, e-mail address and even a credit card number, which can (and should) be password-protected. According to Google, this info is kept on your box, not on the Net. Autofill is an optional feature and can be turned off.

There's also a feature for those who use Google's Blogger.com site that automates the procedure of adding a link to your blog. I can't figure out the attraction to blogs, but I said the same thing about text messaging on cell phones, so maybe I'm just turning into an old fogie.

Naturally, there also is a wireless search function that can be accessed from any number of devices, such as mobile phones, Palm handhelds and the like. To try a Google Search on your PDA, visit www.google.com/palm.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the technical sophistication, Google is easy to use. The home page is essentially blank except for the field where you type in what you're looking for and two buttons below titled "Google Search" and "I'm Feeling Lucky." Hit the first button and you get a page of URLs in order of relevance. Click "I'm Feeling Lucky" and Google's first choice opens.

Although Google is by far the most popular search engine on the Net, there are worthy competitors. Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) is still very popular. Interestingly, for a while, all of Yahoo's searches were conducted by Google.

Another good bet is Teoma (www.teoma.com), which adroitly ranks the "communities" around a particular subject. The end user then goes to that community and picks from the chosen Web sites. For example, a search on Hawaii comes up with popular Web sites such as the University of Hawaii, the eHawaiigov Web site and others. Teoma also generates "community" topics such as Weddings in Hawaii, Hawaii Vacations, Hawaiian Music, etc.

The advantages of this method allow you to find a theme or relevant topic without having to wade through 50 links. This provides you with a real short cut when it comes to figuring out what's important.

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