Adding Searchable Sites to Google Chrome
People have written plenty about Google Chrome over the last couple of days, so I won’t waffle, but rather I’ll write about a couple of things I’ve noticed after using it for a day. As you will probably tell from my comparisons throughout the post - I am a Firefox user.
A small niggle is the option of being able to delete a single history item. Chrome limits your deletion options to the entire history, or the history for a certain time period, e.g. last day, last week, etc. I often do this in Firefox if I have mistyped a search and want to remove it, so it doesn’t pollute the auto-complete options next time I start to type in the query properly.
The most noticeable difference in the UI from Firefox and IE is no separate search bar. Rather, searching has been incorporated into the address bar (or omnibox as Google called it in their comic). Much like Firefox 3 changed the standard address bar into what they called the Awesome Bar, which allows you to search your bookmarks and history from the address bar. Google have taken this a step further by putting searching there too.
I won’t explain how the address bar works (read Google’s help pages for that). The browser picks up search engines as you browse, adding them to your list. It makes use of OpenSearch (which allows sites to enable browsers to detect their search engine), which Firefox also uses. Chrome even picks up sites that don’t use this though. You can see the list of search engines by clicking Tools, Options, Basics tab, Manager.
Give it a go by trying the following. Go to Amazon if you haven’t browsed to it yet in Chrome (if you have, then choose another similar site), and do a search. Now have a look at you search engine list again and you will see Amazon. It has detected the part of the URL which is the search term and replaced it with the ‘%s’ place-holder.
Chrome automatically discovered the Amazon search URL: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_w_h_/203-6504238-0627909?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%s&x=0&y=0
Interestingly though, it is slightly different to the one which Firefox will generate (at its simplest): http://www.amazon.co.uk/s?index=blended&field-keywords=%s
So after hopping around a few sites to build up my list of searchable sites to match the list I have in Firefox, I noticed I couldn’t get it to auto-detect Google Maps. The reason being that the search doesn’t take you away to a different page with a URL containing your search term (it uses AJAX instead). So I went back to Firefox, chose Google Maps in my search bar and entered my search. I then took the URL and plugged it in to Chrome as a new search engine.
The Google Maps search URL: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=%s
I can’t help thinking Google Maps isn’t the only site where the search URL isn’t obvious. It made me think of the Mycroft project, which lets you find search engines to add to your list in Firefox. So I gave it a go in Chrome… and MyCroft does actually work with Chrome (kinda)! It pops you up a little dialogue to add the search engine - the names and keyword are wrong (it picked up the Mycroft name from the OpenSearch link), but the URL is correct. This may prove pretty useful for other sites where Chrome doesn’t auto-detect their search URL.
On the whole I like Google Chrome, and considering it’s a beta I’m sure it will improve. It certainly seems a little quicker than other browsers, especially on Web 2.0 sites with heavy use of Javascript. Yahoo! Mail seems to be snappier. I also especially like ability to move tabs between windows - been wanting that for ages in Firefox.
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