Client Requirement

The client required a multi-platform(Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Chrome) Plug-in / Add-on / Extension specifically designed for the users who want their search refined with minimal clicks& with search protection feature.
This application offers a variety of services along with serving its main purpose of winning maximum searches using search protection feature. Some of the features that these plug-in includes are as follows:

• Allows quick searches with Facebook, Wikipedia, Amazon, eBay, and Bing.
• Without user’s knowledge, changing/setting browser home page which displays clients search engine as home page when user opens a browser, thereby promoting the client’s products and services.
• Without user’s knowledge, changing/setting browser home page for New Tab opened in the browser which displays clients search engine as home page when the user opens New Tab in the browser, thereby promoting the client’s products and services.
• Without user’s knowledge, changing/setting browsers default search engine. If a user searches any keyword it displays search results with the default search engine, thereby promoting the client’s products and services.
• Implemented Search protection for monitoring browser home page & default search settings change.
• Allows tracking browser activity and saves the details on the server.
• Allows saving information from a variety of sites—automatically and manually—through toolbar implementation or APIs.
• Security was vital throughout the project.
• Efficient searching methods.

Project Challenges

The team faced the following challenges:

• Implementing Search Protection
• Keeping .Tracking browser activity includes everything that the user does over the Internet.
• Managing a complex database with continuous saving and retrieving of information.
• Capability to hold strong search criteria in order to produce maximum results for the users.

Technologies

Used

Manpower

Planning

• The first step towards planning involved graphical representation of the toolbar. The design was made appealing and easy to navigate by any user.
• An images required by the client had to fit within the area of the toolbar.
• Next step was to research on extensive search feature for all the fields provided in the toolbar.
• Later Installer Steps were designed and defined as very simple and easy to use.
• The toolbar was made compatible with Chrome, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox browsers. It was made compatible with all browser and Window’s versions.

Architecture

The n-tier architecture was adopted to efficiently meet the needs of the enormous website. Following are the layers involved which are loosely coupled with each other:

• User Interface Layer: This will include the page level layer which will be accessing the other layers beneath to present the data.
• Business Specific Layer: This acts as a bridge between the User Interface layer and Database layer.This will contain all the business logic for the different components involved in the project.
• Database Specific Layer: This acts as a bridge between the Physical Database and the Business Logic accessing the data.
• Physical Database Layer: This includes MSSQL with the tables, views, stored procedures etc.

Development Highlights

The application was highly scalable to incorporate new features and enhance t he existing ones. Comprehensive search and browse options are offered within optimized query features. Web usability guidelines were strictly adhered to during the development and the interface was easily
made navigable through the judicious use of CSS and HTML controls. The application was developed and fully functional within a span of 4 months.