I have a small laptop--older Toshiba, 460.  I have Windows 95, and was
told by my computer fixit man that if I change to Windows 98, because
of the limitations of my laptop's hard drive, memory, etc. on the
internet, things will load on slower.  I definitely don't want that,
as it is already a bit slow, so I am sticking with Windows 95.  But I
have Netscape Communicator for a browser, and I like it a lot.  Only I
would really like to have a Google toolbar, and I tried and it looked
like I can't do it with Netscape Communicator, only with Explorer. 
So, being quite computer ignorant, I went to my Computer fixit-man and
asked him to put Explorer on my laptop.  He tried for a while, and
then told me Microsoft isn't supporting windows 95 anymore, and he
couldn't put Explorer on unless he changed me to 98.  Is there any way
I can keep Windows 95 and still have the Google toolbar?  What would
you recommend?

According to the Google Toolbar download page (
http://toolbar.google.com/ ), the toolbar will only work with
Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5 or later. So IE 3 & 4 are out.
Since IE 6 does not support Win95, that leaves us with IE5 & IE5.5 .
Here are the download links.

 - Internet Explorer 5.5 Service Pack 2 and Internet Tools
   ( www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/recommended/ie55sp2/default.asp
)
    Download and install IE 5.5 with SP2.Typical setup size between
6-17 MB.
    MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
    A 486 with a 66 megahertz (MHz) processor (Pentium processor
recommended)
    For Windows 95 : 16 megabytes (MB) of random access memory (RAM)
minimum

 - Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 2
   ( www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/recommended/ie501sp2/default.asp
)
    Download and install IE 5.01 with SP2.Typical setup size between
6-17 MB.
    MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
    A 486 with a 66 megahertz (MHz) processor (Pentium processor
recommended)
    For Windows 95 : 16 megabytes (MB) of random access memory (RAM)
minimum

I recommend that you first try installing IE 5.5 . If that slows down
your computer, try IE5.01 . Uninstallation instructions for each
version are given on the download page.

There is a port of Google toolbar available for users of
MOzilla/Netscape 6.2+ at ( http://googlebar.mozdev.org/ ). However
these versions of Mozilla/Netscape would prove too much for your aging
Notebook to handle.

If you just want a toolbar you can search Google from, instead of
requiring all the features of the Google Toolbar (like PageRank etc.),
you can try Opera 6, a fast alternative browser, with low minimum
requirements, that allows you to search Google and other search
engines by entering search terms in a toolbar.
  - Opera Download page
    ( http://www.opera.com/download/ )

I hope this answers your question. If you nees any clarifications,
just ask!
:)

I happen to know it is possible to install internet explorer 4.0 on
windows 95 since i have done that before. I got one of the rare copies
of it on a cd with some hardware i bought. I have no idea if internet
explorer 5 or higher will run on windows 95, but from the way it
sounds, IE 4 would be the highest version that would perform with
adaquate speed on your computer. I don't know exactly where my cd is
though, or if you can still download this version through the
microsoft website.

If you want a version older than 4.0, you can get them from
oldversion.com [ http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=msie ].