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New Google Toolbar Brings Browse By Name
Philipp Lenssen writes "The newest release of the Google Toolbar (Internet Explorer only) comes with a Browse by Name feature. It lets you enter keywords in the browser address bar, and when Google decides this is a sure bet you will be directly forwarded to the right page. Is this the return of Internet Keywords?"
http://toolbar.google.com/bbn_help.html for (a little) more info
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I downloaded this thing about a week ago after a format, and without having performed any rigorous testing my impression is that it takes me directly to a page *only* if the URL comprises my search terms. So it's much more selective than "i'm feeling lucky".
To take a (random) example, typing "harman kardon" takes me to harmankardon.com. However, typing "harman kardon amplifiers" takes me to a standard search results page. Same thing with "mazda" vs "mazda trucks".
So IMHO it ends up being a rather benign little time-saver.
Keywords are enabled by default in Firefox but you can easily disable them.
- Type about:config in the URL field
- Look for the keyword.enabled line and double-click it
- Replace "True" with "False"
Et voila !
"Naughty, naughty, naughty, you filthy old soomka !"
Mozilla, or at least Firefox, has done this for a while -- it just goes to Google and grabs the first result (i.e. "I'm feeling lucky"). It's neat and I've used it, but I don't really use it a lot.
You could actually do this in IE as well by merging the values below into the registry:
e arch?q=%s&btnG=Google+S earch"
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl]
"provider"=""
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl\g]
@="http://www.google.com/s
" "="+"
"#"="%23"
"&"="%26"
"?"="%3F"
"+"="%2B"
"="="%3D"
I've been using this built-in support in both browsers for years...
In a sense, what Google's doing here is taking what used to happen when you typed a non-domain'ed phrase into IE's address bar, a search at your selected search engine, and declaring that if the confidence score is high enough, equating that to an "I'm feeling lucky" click on the Google homepage.
In a sense, if the PageRank of hit #1 is so far away from the PageRank of hit #2... why bother with the selection screen, just assume that the user wants to see #1 and give it to them.
Back when Real Names was a business, I was working for a Movie Studio. The Real Names folks almost sounded threatening when they told us that we'd better snatch up our names before someone else did! Thankfully we just ignored them.
Best Buy can have you arrested
1. Go to your favorite web page (say www.nytimes.com).
2. Bookmark it (CTRL-D)
3. Go to the Bookmarks Manager (CTRL-B)
4. Scroll down to the entry you just added and press CTRL-I to edit it.
5. On the dialog that appears, there's a "Keyword" entry field, enter the "keyword" that you want to use for this web page you have bookmarked (example: nyt).
6. That's it!. Next time you enter "NYT" (unquoted of course) on the url entry field and press [enter] you're taken to www.nytimes.com
7. repeat for every web page that you want to create your personal keyword.
Some other suggestions:
1. Drop Internet Explorer and MS-Lookout! ^R^R^R^R^R^R Outlook.
2. Install Mozilla as your primary browser and e-mail client.
3. set your IE proxy to some non-existant internal IP address (10.x.x.x), on the exceptions list, put the windowsupdate page (makes it impossible for IE to reach out any page on the net, except windowsupdate).
FC
Type in "best browser" and you will get to.. http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
Even easier: http://www.google.com/google.reg
Save it and double-click to add it to the registy.
A speech...