Slashdot Mirror


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?"

29 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 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 !"
  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. 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.

  8. 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
  9. 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

  10. 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
  11. 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."

  12. 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
  13. 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!

  14. 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

  15. 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.

  16. 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

  17. 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.
  18. 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.