IDEA: Internet Explorer Address Bar Search Utility

[Josh]

I am wondering how difficult it would be for someone to develop a tool that will allow you to create a custom "keyword search" that can be used in the internet explorer address bar similar to what is mentioned in this thread. With the advent of the RC of IE9, I find myself using it full time and actually enjoying internet explorer once more. This is really the only functionality I am missing.

Would this be difficult?

[lanux128]

this has been available in Firefox for some time now.

• http://support.mozil.../kb/Smart%20keywords

[Josh]

Yes, but I refuse to install a mozilla beta out of sheer principle. They let firefox decline for so long (memory issues, slowdowns, sluggishness) that I have decided to halt usage until it is sped up. V4 beta is looking promising from the portable version I tried, but I will wait until it is final.

[lanux128]

ah, i see.. however if you're on WinXP, TweakUI could used to add/edit/delete the search items.


• http://www.timeatlas...refixes_with_TweakUI

[Josh]

I would use that in a second, Windows 7 here, however

[MilesAhead]

I would use that in a second, Windows 7 here, however

-Josh (February 21, 2011, 09:00 PM)

I'm running FF 3.6.9 on W7 32 bit and this gives me google search in the address bar( or location bar.. whatever they are calling it this week )

http://www.techzilo....refox-google-chrome/

[Paul Keith]

I didn't search for this at all but maybe you can get a better answer from Maxthon users.

http://www.maxthon.com/

http://forums.mozill...t=439757&start=0

I'm also not sure if Maxthon is stable under Windows 7.

[lanux128]

you can always use a certain app named Farr, that way you can bypass each browser's idiosyncrasies.

[Josh]

I would really prefer to not have yet another app running on my system. Maxthon is OK, but it is more of a pain to deal with when it comes to certain areas of my browsing life. Vanilla IE9 is quite enjoyable.

[Paul Keith]

You may have to wait for IE7Pro to support IE 9.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IE7Pro

[MilesAhead]

The way they do it in Chrome/Chromium is preferred. Unless you have an absolute need for some IEism I'd say just use Chromium.  Even the nightly build zips are pretty stable.  You can look in the xml file to see if there's a bunch of issues or tests with that build. Or just wait until one is noted on Softpedia.  Those tend to be very stable.

Also the main bug I've noticed in Chromium that pops up now and then is losing the favicons.  That's pretty minor.  To me the Chromium nightlies for Windows are more stable than most beta releases I've tried with other browsers.

It helps if you have some memory/horsepower since coming up to a blank page is uses like 8 processes.  But it snaps open, unlike FF.

I can't see going back.
For privacy concerns if you uncheck all the options under the Privacy setting then at least in Chromium it shouldn't track you.

I wrote a little script just to visit all the pages in my bookmarks file to restore favicons as that seems to be the most popular bug if you get a bug.

Oh, almost forgot the main point.  With Chrome/Chromium you can set up aliases for search engines.  Say google is your default, just typing keywords in the address bar searches google.  But if I want to search d-addicts for the titles of Asian TV Dramas, I just prefix the search with alias "da" in the address bar.  I have "av" to use AltaVista and so on. Very flexible.

[Stoic Joker]

(I could be wrong, but...) You really don't need a tool, unless you're going to be doing a large number of them at once. It's really just a matter of doing a search on the given target site to see how they pass in the search string to what. Then set the @ value to that string, give it a new alias, and reapply the new .reg patch file.

[MilesAhead]

(I could be wrong, but...) You really don't need a tool, unless you're going to be doing a large number of them at once. It's really just a matter of doing a search on the given target site to see how they pass in the search string to what. Then set the @ value to that string, give it a new alias, and reapply the new .reg patch file.

-Stoic Joker (February 23, 2011, 11:37 AM)

I never tried the .reg approach for this purpose with other browsers. Kind of interesting.

With Chromium It took me a bit to grasp that it's transparent.  I used to go to the search site, do a search so I had keywords to find to substitute "%s" for, then manually enter the stuff.  Then I realized if I did a search at an engine site, Chromium added it to the list.  All I had to do was change the alias to what I wanted, say 'y' instead of "yahoo" or whatever, substitute "%s" for the keywords and it was done.