There has been tons of buzz in the blogosphere about Google promoting Firefox on the Google.com homepage. News.com has a quick write up on it, that links to screen capture of what was promoted. We know Google and Firefox have always had positive relations and we can see how Google is primary promoting the Google Toolbar for Firefox. They even pay you a dollar for each person you refer to download Firefox. Just another little fillip to Microsoft.

In only about a year, Firefox has gone from relative obscurity to being the second most popular browser in the world. It’s got only about 9% of the Internet browsing market, but that’s incredible for a version 1.0 product, especially since the top browser, Microsoft Internet Explorer, comes bundled with new PCs. And the number of Firefox users is growing steadily and rapidly. The release of Firefox 1.5, the first major upgrade since Firefox 1.0 came out in November 2004, is almost certain to drive adoption rates even higher. <Full review by PC Magazine>

The new Google Toolbar for Firefox was released on schedule yesterday, as anticipated. We’ve been playing with it since then and so far we love it. You can download it here.

According to The Inquirer, the Google toolbar for Firefox will be released later today, “around noonish”.

The Firefox toolbar is reported top have all the functionality of the Internet Explorer version except for popup blocking and browse-by-name functionality, which Firefox already has without the toolbar.

The Firefox toolbar should be available on the Google Downloads page.

Ever since The U.S. government’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) encouraged users to abandon Internet Explorer for Internet browsing because of security issues, Mozilla’s Firefox browser has been gaining market share rapidly.

Unfortunately for those of us who have switched (and really HATE to have to use Internet Explorer on those rare occasions it’s required), the Google Toolbar only works in Internet Explorer. After four years, it appears Google may be ready to release a new toolbar, this time for Firefox.

Industry rumors say the release date is this Thursday, July 7, with press announcements scheduled for tomorrow, July 6.

Stay tuned!