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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?"

42 of 340 comments (clear)

  1. Appears to work well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I typed in "buggy insecure browser" and it took me here.

    1. Re:Appears to work well by Frankie70 · · Score: 3, Funny


      No joke, I just tried that with firefox, and it took me to a download page for Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1.


      Yes - at download.com

      Typing "Miserable failure" in firefox also takes you to the Whitehouse website.

    2. Re:Appears to work well by Choron · · Score: 5, Informative

      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 !"
    3. Re:Appears to work well by Alien+Being · · Score: 3, Funny

      Type what? Is there an icon for it? Is it the one with the guy who's head is stuck up his ass? Wait, I think i see it... nope that's for the dancing paperclip... this is too hard.. the fucker's going beep-beep-beep... I'm buying a mac.

    4. Re:Appears to work well by Bert64 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The google toolbar is IE only, it attempts to implement missing features into IE that firefox already has.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
  2. lucky by dirvish · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So...it goes to the I'm Feeling Lucky link?

    1. Re:lucky by trauma · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    2. Re:lucky by Dr+Tall · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If that's the case, this will only serve to inflame the domain war disputes. Does Visa have more of a point about registering Visa.com if Google won't even display the credit card company on a search for "Visa"?

    3. Re:lucky by trauma · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Oddly enough, typing "visa" went to a standard search results page when I tried it just now. Of course visa.com was the first link displayed (aside from the links promoting google's news service), but still that's interesting. I wonder what the actual mechanism is.

    4. Re:lucky by LnxAddct · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Firefox has had this for a while. Anyone running firefox (I'm running 0.9.3) type "New York Times" in the url bar and hit enter, it puts you at www.nytimes.com. It just takes you to the I'm Feeling lucky link, but it comes in handy.
      Regards,
      Steve

  3. Coming soon: by Neil+Blender · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Keywords for sale.

    1. Re:Coming soon: by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why is anyone who likens this to AOL, or mentions that Google (now a publically traded corporation) might use this as a source of profit getting modded down as troll or flamebait?

      Hell, you should be modded redundant. Of COURSE google will sell keywords.

      When it comes time to show numbers to investors, all their lovey-dovey altruistic bullshit will be forgotten.

      --
      I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
    2. Re:Coming soon: by dswensen · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why is anyone who likens this to AOL, or mentions that Google (now a publically traded corporation) might use this as a source of profit getting modded down as troll or flamebait?

      The same reason cynical, knee-jerk, anti-corporate pessimism regularly gets modded Insightful?

    3. Re:Coming soon: by HeghmoH · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When it comes time to show numbers to investors, all their lovey-dovey altruistic bullshit will be forgotten.

      That "bullshit" is the entire reason Google is the 500-pound gorilla of search. They are the only search company anybody cares about precisely because they don't let money interfere with their search; ironically, this allows them to make more money. The investors won't try to screw the customer at all costs, they will want whatever makes more money, and Google has proven that not screwing the customer can win.

      --
      Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
  4. You mean... by keiferb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Like firefox's address bar already does? Type in a word or phrase and hit enter and you're directed to the equivalent of an "I'm feeling lucky" search on whatever you typed.

    1. Re:You mean... by Atrax · · Score: 4, Funny

      > Well, it's nice to see IE is finally catching up

      yeah, but it's not IE catching up. it's a third-party addon, not the IE team suddenly adding a (very useful hassle saving) feature.

      --
      Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
    2. Re:You mean... by terranlune · · Score: 5, Informative

      You could actually do this in IE as well by merging the values below into the registry:

      [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl]
      "provider"=""

      [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl\g]
      @="http://www.google.com/se arch?q=%s&btnG=Google+S earch"
      " "="+"
      "#"="%23"
      "&"="%26"
      "?"="%3F"
      "+"="%2B"
      "="="%3D"

      I've been using this built-in support in both browsers for years...

    3. Re:You mean... by km790816 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Even easier: http://www.google.com/google.reg

      Save it and double-click to add it to the registy.

  5. Funny... by Drakonite · · Score: 5, Insightful
    My browser (firefox) does this already. Sometimes I end up at really weird pages, but as long as I type in something sane that has a definite homepage, it takes me there.

    I haven't looked under the hood but I suspect it's a glorified I'm Feeling Lucky google search. Doesn't seem very news worthy to me...

    --
    Shoot Pixels, Not People!
  6. Poor submission by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://toolbar.google.com/bbn_help.html for (a little) more info

  7. google takes over world by qopax · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So they can get to everybody. An invite isn't something you sign up for, it is something given to you, current users would give it to their close friends and relatives, who are prolly not technical users and know nothing about current tech news and development of something as bland as a new email service, but thus letting people know of how good it is, and making sure the word spreads out that much farther. wow, no wonder google mostly or only employs phd's...

    smart aren't they? also, google is still free, and I saw many people say they would be completely willing to pay for it on slashdot just because it is pretty much better than any other search engine that is currently available, and it is so damn fast. But Google doesn't need to slow down their conquest of the internet market, by doing something like making their services fee-based, at least not yet. First something as unimportant as a search engine. then an email service. next an efficient and elegant messenger with most features you need and enough userbase from gmail and google to make it the most popular messenger in the world. then a web browser with all these features integrated into a slick and resource efficient application, along with it a security package guarding your internet experience.

    then an operating system.

    then manufacturing it's own line of computers. most common type at first, but after maybe making it's own type of a portable computer system.

    sounds like Apple, in the way that it is so popular right now with the iPods, but only iPods, and the way their products are so elegant and clean and efficient. ut much less expensive than Apple, currently at least.

    Along the way probably Google will make a bad decision or in one of the processes I described something better than a Google's product would be released and would gain popularity and the plan would fall through. but Google probably isn't stupid enough to create a plan that isn't fault-tolerant. the course of this plan may take 15, maybe 20 years, and then Google will control humanity and make a cluster of human brains integrated with computers to find out the meaning of life?

    oh wait, that would be evil

    --
    I pwn this comment. "The Fine Print" says so.
  8. Firefox & Safari by Feneric · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My first thought was "why MSIE only?" but then upon looking closer discovered that it only seems to be more or less replicating the facility already built into Firefox and Safari.

    Not too earth shattering, and just in time to catch a declining IE. Most of the folks who would download and install this are probably competent enough to download and install Firefox.

    1. Re:Firefox & Safari by garcia · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not too earth shattering, and just in time to catch a declining IE.

      Sorry but I don't exactly think it's all that important of a feature. It surely isn't anyting but bloat. Don't we normally complain about that with other pieces of software?

      Somehow when we talk about Mozilla/Firefox features that IE doesn't have it's never unnecessary.

  9. Re:Return of Internet Keywords? by Ender+Ryan · · Score: 4, Informative
    There have been several attempts by several different parties to introduce an AOL-ish "Keyword" system to the general web-browsing population. I am not sure which the submitter is referring to, possibly something MS once tried to do with IE? I think I recall MS fumbling around with something like that some years ago. I don't know...

    --
    Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
  10. This will be very interesting by JeanBaptiste · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "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."

    Google hacking will be really damn funny. Just imagine, say, for 6 months, people get used to typing 'update windows' in their address bar. Then, some google hacker figures out a way to suddenly spike the value of some other site somehow to include 'update windows' as the first choice. Hopefully not to goatse.

    other fun things to do with google

  11. Can be very glitchy on Intranets by RomSteady · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Unfortunately, if you enter a single word, it does not check to see if it can resolve the name on your Intranet first. Instead, it immediately does the "Browse By Name."

    This caused a lot of issues on our Intranet. Just warning everyone.

    --
    RomSteady - I came, I saw, I tested. GamerTag: RomSteady / http://www.romsteady.net
  12. "Internet keywords" without the evil by IntelliTubbie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is this the return of Internet Keywords?

    In one sense, Google has always been about "Internet keywords" -- accessing information by description rather than name. This simply streamlines the process of going to www.google.com, typing in the search terms, and hitting "I feel lucky" into a single step within the browser.

    So why did "Internet keywords" get such a bad rap the first time around? Because, contrary to Google's motto ("Don't be evil"), they were doing it to profit from selling keywords. While they claimed to be delivering information to users, they were really delivering users to advertisers.

    Thankfully, Google discovered that there's a sizeable market for honest technology that does what it says. To cite another example, this is also why user-controlled RSS has succeeded where deliverer-controlled "Push" technology failed so spectacularly.

    Cheers,
    IT

    --

    Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.

  13. Patent trouble by IgD · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Looks like some else already patented this concept: http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US06101537__

    "A universal electronic resource denotation, request and delivery system allows a user to locate information on a distributed computer system or network such as the Internet by knowing or guessing a short mnemonic alias of an electronic resource without the user having to know the physical or other location denotation such as the universal resource locator (URL) of the desired resource."

  14. Oy by .com+b4+.storm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A lot of high-mod posts on here are totally missing the point. The point isn't so much that IE is finally getting the equivelant of an "I'm feeling lucky" text box, it's getting one that is (supposedly) intelligent. When Google thinks the "I'm feeling lucky" link is what you want, it will take you there. If not, it takes you to the regular search results. That is what makes this (albeit questionably) interesting.

    --
    "Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
    -- Ryan Stiles
  15. Firefox does it already by prell · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  16. Re:Return of Internet Keywords? by Neil+Blender · · Score: 3, Funny

    And the fact that if u take AOL broad band (even cable) you have to run a bloated software which doesnt run on Linux just to connect. (I tried it bcos they had a 45 days free trial and I was short of money ... but it was useless becos I couldnt use it on my linux machine)

    So the grammer/spelling/general annoyingness problem doesn't go away even after you stop using AOL?

  17. Re:IE only? by Stevyn · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just f**king download firefox and enjoy the f**cking google bar already build the f**k in. It's f**king great and I use it all the f**cking time.

    Haha, alright man, I'm just f**cking with you. I still like to go to google.com. This article made me realize I should get rid that that f**king google bar. It's just wasting space and that pissed me the f**k off.

    Fuck!

  18. I'm really feeling lucky... by LostCluster · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  19. Commerce by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I am curious about the impact on commerce sites who currently use search engine rankings as part of their overall marketing mix.

    Why would a search for "Harman Kardon" take me to HarmanKardon.com instead of showing me the Top 10 results which might include discount resellers of Harmon Kardon products? Instead, I, the websurfer, now must wade through informational content and somehow find my way to resellers officially listed at the HK site.

    Why would a search for "Grand Canyon" *not* take me to GrandCanyon.com?

    If I type in "tshirts" or "cheap tshirts" what would I get (i.e., how it is determined what the "real" website is for a given keyword/phrase)?

    I could go on and on, but surely it is readily apparent, if adopted en masse and if keywords/phrases are increasingly populated with a single response, the results could be highly disadvantageous to a wide range of commercial websites (and information sites, for that matter). Many changes at Google have already had the side effect of destabilizing some small businesses who previously relied on (ethical) search engine marketing as a major component of their commerce exchanges (and the many customers who were thankful to have found that commercial site).

    Those magically blessed by Google, through a process we do not understand, will be the rare few who benefit.

    (In some small way, it reminds me of Microsoft whereby they have all the answer [singular] you need. And only their official channel benefits. Because the mass of people are not Slashdotters who understand how to use a wide variety of tools for a wide variety of purposes. Instead, the masses are funneled through a pre-determined strainer.)

    Finally, is there some kind of legal liability if Google directs searches for (something like) "Britney Spears" to the wrong site? Or, perhaps, if they have the technology in place to point it to the right site, but instead show raw search results none of which contain the official site? It seems to me that its a bit problematic to be the One and Great Arbiter of what's the single correct response to a query.

    Contrary to some other posts, this type of 'technology' (whether in FireFox or in a Google ToolBar or AOL Keyword) is *very* newsworthy in that it can change the landscape for a wide number of commerical (and non-commerical) website traffic.

  20. Re:or by soyuz_2 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Try "waffles." I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

    What, republicans know how to use computers too? And googlebomb? This must be the new shock & awe strategy I've been hearing so much about...

  21. Re:This is probably not aimed at us by callipygian-showsyst · · Score: 4, Insightful
    After all, how many readers use IE anyway?

    *I* do!

    I switched back to IE from Firefox because I got tired of bugs like this

  22. RealNames information by callipygian-showsyst · · Score: 4, Informative
    For those of you that don't remember the abomination that was RealNames, here's a story about their last business day

    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.

  23. Old news, Mozilla/Netscape7 have bookmark keywords by fcassia_at_gmail · · Score: 5, Informative
    Old news. Mozilla and Netscape 7.x both feature "Bookmark Keywords"... one of the hidden gems of Mozilla Browser Suite.

    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

  24. Meh, who cares by Gentlewhisper · · Score: 3, Informative

    Type in "best browser" and you will get to.. http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

  25. mark my words by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How about adding a "trademark-domain" namespace scheme to Google, like "tm:music-distribution:apple", that finds only pages about Apple records, and not Apple Computers, using the existing trademark system?

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  26. Local Names by LionKimbro · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I figure this is the right place to plug a project I've been working on.

    It's called "Local Names," and it allows you to use short names for URLs.

    The idea is that you should be able to use short names in:

    • e-mail
    • instant messages
    • bulletin board posts
    • blog posts
    • wiki posts
    • ...and in your address bar.


    We can presently use LocalNames in most wiki (any wiki that supports InterLinks,) in WordPress blogs, and in Firefox browsers.

    The LocalNames spec doesn't describe what linking syntax should look like, but it'd generally be something like this: [[short name of URL][long text to link.]] So for example, you might write:

    "So, I was on [[Slashdot]] the other day, and I saw [[invisibility cloak][an incredible invisibility cloak!]]"


    Which would render out as:

    "So, I was on Slashdot the other day, and I saw an incredible invisibility cloak!


    The names lists support defaulting, so that you don't have to name every URL you like. If someone makes a names list you like, (for example, the contents of a wiki,) you can just default to it.

    There is already: a site for keeping your own names list, a web-browser redirection site, and a site for adapting a Wiki's title index into a Local Names list.

    Python programmers may be interested in the Python library reference names, which you can use with FireFox to jump straight to any Python module's documentation.

    Bloggers may be interested in MooKitty's plug-in for WordPress that lets you use LocalNames in blog posts.

    Really, I get a little upset now when I have to look up URL's mid-post. I think, "Geeze, I've got the LocalName for this right on the tip of my tongue; Why do I have to actually resolve it to a URL myself, and then stick a href tags around it?"

    Once you start using short names for stuff, you never want to go back.
  27. Re:or by soyuz_2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeh d00d, republiKKKans are dummies LOL!!!

    Yes, it was wrong of me to perpetuate these untrue stereotypes of republicans. Do accept my heartfelt apologies. And say hi to your mom for me, it's been a while.