CFA/Search-Notes

« Comparative Feature Analyses

Purpose

Examine a bunch of browsers, existing Firefox Add-ons, and web services to generate a report that describes:

• Which capabilities each has (look at preferences panel for details about how search is customizable)
• A summary of where each is different/unique
• Some conclusions about which aspects seem most innovative and interesting that we might want to consider for Firefox

Research

General capabilities

The following will be done in a table with notes and observations following as footnotes.

• UI - Support search engine shortcut keys (Ryan Flint) - FF3 P2
• UI - Resizable search bar (Neil Deakin) - FF3 P2
• UI - highlight notification of ability to add search plugin - FF2
• UI - information on mouseover of buttons
• UI - highlight, right-click, and search
• UI - drag and drop search
• Search Engines - Ability to declare a default search engine - FF3 P3?
• Search Engines - Ability to use a temporary search engine and then restore the default (one time use) - FF3 P3?
• Search Engines - ability to manage, add, restore default, and reorder search plugins - FF2
• Search Engines - ability to add search plugins - FF2
• Search Engines - multi-engine search
• Search Engines - automatically check for updates to search engines
• Search Engines - local search engines on default
• Address Bar - combine bookmark keywords and bookmark search - FF2?
• Address Bar - ability to browse by name from address bar (keyword.URL)
• Address Bar - keywords (search from location bar)
• Address Bar - web searches in address field w/ keywords - opera
• Address Bar - customize address bar search - maxthon
• Address Bar - URL alias - maxthon
• Address Bar - autocomplete keywords
• Search Bar - support for multiple search boxes - FF2?
• Search Bar - site-specific search using search box
• Search Bar - highlight entire search field when clicking in the box
• Search Bar - SnapBack - safari
• Search Bar - button to clear search field - safari
• Search Bar - search this site - camino
• Search Bar - wrap up feature for search engines, to search all at once
• Search Bar - targeted search options: audio/video podcast, photo, code, technorati searches
• Search Results - Rich search results (Gavin Sharp) - FF3 P3
• Search Results - offer suggestions to autocomplete searches - FF2
• Search Results - google calculator suggestions in search box - FF
• Search Results - show recent searches/search history
• Search Results - search results in new tab vs. this tab
• Search Results - preview search results - safari
• Search Results - show matching favorites when searching - flock
• Search this Page - search on webpage
• Search this Page - highlight search text on webpage
• Search this Page - match case of search text on webpage
• Search this Page - search for text when i start typing
• Search this Page - dim background on search w/in webpage - safari
• Search this Page - match whole word only on search w/in page - opera
• Search this Page - option to search in current window, local files, internet, web cache - iCab
• Search this Page - option to search 2 search engines at once - iCab
• Search this Page - search and replace - omniweb
• Search this Page - search for regular expressions - omniweb
• Search this Page - find in all tabs - shiira
• writing direction in search and location bar - safari
• user profile to save search and other settings

http://www.flock.com/node/8489#_comment

Browsers to investigate

• Firefox 2
• Camino
• Flock
• iCab
• IE 7
• Maxthon
• Netscape
• OmniWeb
• Opera
• Safari
• SeaMonkey
• Shiira

Firefox Add-ons to investigate

• CustomizeGoogle link
• Answers link
• GooglePreview link
• LinkedIn Companion link
• SearchWith link
• DictionarySearch link
• Groowe Search Toolbar link
• Loki link
• OpenSearchFox link

Safari: http://pimpmysafari.com/plugins/?c=Searching

• Sogudi - shortcut keyword searches
• Saft link
• Insquisitor link - rich search results, autocomplete, search suggestions

References

• Download Manager notes