Google Chrome Has Wicked Quick Searches

By Daniel Miessler on December 14th, 2008: Tagged as Google | Technology

google_chrome

One of the reasons people don’t want to leave Firefox for Google’s new Chrome Browser is Firefox’s Quicksearch feature, which allows you to use single character prefixes to search various sites from Firefox’s URL bar. Fortunately, you don’t have to leave this functionality behind if you decide to move to Chrome.

In fact, Google actually implements Quicksearches in a slicker way than Firefox in my opinion. When you go to Tools –> Options –> Basics Tab and then click the Manage button, you are presented with this:

chrome_bookmarks

I’ve already modified a few of the keywords to be single characters, but as you can see, all the Quicksearch functionality is already built into Chrome, and it’s quite simple and intuitive to add new search engines to the list and/or modify the keywords for existing ones.

Above and Beyond

What’s most interesting, though, is what Google does with Quicksearches that nobody else does. Here are two examples:

Visual Searches

As you type a keyword in the URL bar and press the spacebar to type in your query, Google visually autocompletes the type of search you’re doing. So as you’re entering your search terms you get the following dialogue box (based on the search engine you’re using). Here I used the “m” trigger to use Microsoft search:

live_search

It’s a very clean effect.

Automatically Adding New Quicksearches

Perhaps the sickest thing of all that Google’s browser does with quicksearches is add them automatically. Try this:

  1. Go into your quicksearch management in Chrome and delete the Yahoo! search
  2. Go to Yahoo! and perform a search
  3. Go back into your quicksearch management and notice that Yahoo! has been added back.

That’s impressive. You just do your thing and it builds quicksearches in case you want to do it faster next time.

So, even if you decide Chrome isn’t the browser for you, don’t let the lack of Quicksearches be a reason. Google has them covered, and arguably in a superior to other browsers. ::

  • http://www.jowki.co.uk Artful Dodger

    Nice I like it. I already got Google Chrome though. I like it because of its speed but its still not going to make me leave firefox. One of the greatest addon for firefox is adblock plus and I can't do without it.

  • http://www.jasonthomaspowell.com Jason Powell

    “…it’s quite simple and intuitive to add new search engines to the list…”

    This is another one of the things that Chrome does for you automatically. Any site you visit with a properly coded search field is automatically added by Chrome as a quicksearch. That's why you'd need to modify the keyword in your Chrome–the ones it already shows in the list are from sites you've visited.

    The default way of searching using this feature is to type the domain name of the site into your browser, space, then your search terms. As soon as you start typing in more words after the space, the browser changes to let you know you're searching.

    Nice, nice, nice.

    I can also build my “custom” quicksearches in Chrome like I can in Firefox. You just need to modify the URL for the quicksearch. Twenty times a day, I need to find a client's NetCommunity site. So, what I need is a Google search that already has the term “netcommunity” entered when I use the keyword “n.”

    I create a new quicksearch, copy in the URL from my Google quicksearch, and add,
    “netcommunity%20.” (The %20 enters a space after netcommunity.)

    Like so:
    http://www.google.com/search?q=netcommunity%20%…

    Guff about Chrome…

    Minor stuff. Stuff I can step around. Click a folder in your bookmarks bar, and the focus doesn't follow you if you hover over another folder. You have to click off to lose that focus. And, yeah, I think there should be an option on the right-click context menu that lets you add keyword searches manually, like in Firefox.

  • http://www.jowki.co.uk Artful Dodger

    Nice I like it. I already got Google Chrome though. I like it because of its speed but its still not going to make me leave firefox. One of the greatest addon for firefox is adblock plus and I can't do without it.

  • http://www.jasonthomaspowell.com Jason Powell

    “…it’s quite simple and intuitive to add new search engines to the list…”

    This is another one of the things that Chrome does for you automatically. Any site you visit with a properly coded search field is automatically added by Chrome as a quicksearch. That's why you'd need to modify the keyword in your Chrome–the ones it already shows in the list are from sites you've visited.

    The default way of searching using this feature is to type the domain name of the site into your browser, space, then your search terms. As soon as you start typing in more words after the space, the browser changes to let you know you're searching.

    Nice, nice, nice.

    I can also build my “custom” quicksearches in Chrome like I can in Firefox. You just need to modify the URL for the quicksearch. Twenty times a day, I need to find a client's NetCommunity site. So, what I need is a Google search that already has the term “netcommunity” entered when I use the keyword “n.”

    I create a new quicksearch, copy in the URL from my Google quicksearch, and add,
    “netcommunity%20.” (The %20 enters a space after netcommunity.)

    Like so:
    http://www.google.com/search?q=netcommunity%20%…

    Guff about Chrome…

    Minor stuff. Stuff I can step around. Click a folder in your bookmarks bar, and the focus doesn't follow you if you hover over another folder. You have to click off to lose that focus. And, yeah, I think there should be an option on the right-click context menu that lets you add keyword searches manually, like in Firefox.

  • http://www.jowki.co.uk Artful Dodger

    Nice I like it. I already got Google Chrome though. I like it because of its speed but its still not going to make me leave firefox. One of the greatest addon for firefox is adblock plus and I can't do without it.

  • http://www.jasonthomaspowell.com Jason Powell

    “…it’s quite simple and intuitive to add new search engines to the list…”

    This is another one of the things that Chrome does for you automatically. Any site you visit with a properly coded search field is automatically added by Chrome as a quicksearch. That's why you'd need to modify the keyword in your Chrome–the ones it already shows in the list are from sites you've visited.

    The default way of searching using this feature is to type the domain name of the site into your browser, space, then your search terms. As soon as you start typing in more words after the space, the browser changes to let you know you're searching.

    Nice, nice, nice.

    I can also build my “custom” quicksearches in Chrome like I can in Firefox. You just need to modify the URL for the quicksearch. Twenty times a day, I need to find a client's NetCommunity site. So, what I need is a Google search that already has the term “netcommunity” entered when I use the keyword “n.”

    I create a new quicksearch, copy in the URL from my Google quicksearch, and add,
    “netcommunity%20.” (The %20 enters a space after netcommunity.)

    Like so:
    http://www.google.com/search?q=netcommunity%20%…

    Guff about Chrome…

    Minor stuff. Stuff I can step around. Click a folder in your bookmarks bar, and the focus doesn't follow you if you hover over another folder. You have to click off to lose that focus. And, yeah, I think there should be an option on the right-click context menu that lets you add keyword searches manually, like in Firefox.

  • Pingback: Why I Think Google Chrome Will Be Highly Successful | dmiessler.com

  • Legion1978

    Is there an easy way to add the search strings?? Opera has an “add search” context menu item to do it. I cant do that on masked-url sites with chrome.
    thnx

  • http://danielmiessler.com/ Daniel Miessler

    Just click 'manage search engines' or whatever it's called.

    –
    Daniel R. Miessler
    W: http://danielmiessler.com
    E: daniel@danielmiessler.com
    P: 0x4048712D

  • Chinasaur

    But with Firefox I can have my quicksearches saved through delicious and then they all autopropagate to any Firefox install that I add the delicious extension to. Would be nice if Chrome delicious extension handled this…

    I suppose Chrome’s sync feature may get the job done in terms of propagating my quicksearches between Chrome installs, but would be nicer to have the integration to a third party bookmarking service.

    • http://danielmiessler.com/ Daniel Miessler

      That is already part of Chrome.


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