CFA/Search-Research

« Comparative Feature Analyses
« Search Notes

General Browser Capabilities

Search Engines

Current Capabilities:

• Ability to manage search engines: add, remove, restore default, reorder
• Automatically check for updates to search engines
• Highlight notification of ability to add search engine

Upcoming Capabilities:

• Ability to declare a default search engine - FF3 P3? (link)
• Ability to use a temporary search engine and then restore the default (one time use) - FF3 P3?
• Support search engine shortcut keys (Ryan Flint) - FF3 P2

Capabilities in other browsers:

• Multi-engine search (link)
• Local search engines on default

Conclusions:

• Default search engine: if we were to implement a default search engine option, the Safari and Flock implementations are intuitive. A right-click on search bar option to set a default engine would have been nice, but I haven't seen it on other browsers. IE's implementation looks like a hack, and Maxthon's implementation made me want to pull out my hair.
• Notify ability to add search engine: none of the sites seemed to do a clear job of this notification. A stronger visual cue here would help.
• One-time use of search engine: haven't seen it implemented on any other site. If we decide to implement this feature, we should make it an option, not a rule.
• Multi-engine search: Maxthon's search is noticeably slow, but highly customizable. SeaMonkey's solution is fast but not elegant, unless the search is esoteric. Opera's is confusing because of the two search boxes.
• OpenSearchFox is a great FF extension that allows you to right-click any search box, and add it as a search plugin. Opera has this functionality built in.
• Loki is a very interesting FF extension that leverages a wifi positioning system to integrate your location to your search. It feels like too much bloat now, but with improved performance, might be meaningful to search.

Address Bar

Current Capabilities:

• Drag and drop search
• Ability to browse by name from address bar (keyword.URL)

Capabilities in other browsers:

• Customized keyword web searches - opera link
• URL alias - maxthon
• Search bookmarks and history from Address Bar - IE

Additional features:

• Unified search - results include bookmarks, URL history, search history and the web
• Autocomplete keywords

Conclusions:

• When adding a search engine to Opera, we are able to create a keyword for using it. It notifies if a keyword is already being used. Very convenient! Also, when typing a keyword in Opera, there are visual cues to let the user know beforehand which page would be displayed.
• Some browsers such as Maxthon and Safari w/ Sogudi allow users to add keywords for specific sites that are not search engines.
• IE suggests bookmarks and history when users type in the address bar while all other sites only suggest history.
• There are no unified searches because the address bar and search bar are separate in every browser.

Search Bar

Current Capabilities:

• highlight entire search field when clicking in the box
• drag and drop search
• highlight, right-click, and search
• button information on mouse-over

Upcoming Capabilities:

• Resizable search bar (Neil Deakin) - FF3 P2

Features on other browsers:

• SnapBack - safari
• button to clear search field - safari
• search this site - camino
• Search bookmarks and history from Search Bar - flock
• wrap up feature for search engines, to search all at once - maxthon

Additional features:

• keyword web searches
• support for multiple search boxes - Groowe Search Toolbar - FF add-on
• site-specific search using search box - google
• targeted search options: audio/video podcast, photo, code, technorati searches

Search Results

Current Capabilities:

• show recent searches/search history
• offer suggestions to autocomplete searches - FF2
• google calculator suggestions in search box - FF
• display search results in this tab

• Rich search results (Gavin Sharp) - FF3 P3
• display in new tab
• display in new window
• display in sidebar
• preview search results - safari
• show matching bookmarks when searching - flock

Search this Page

• search on webpage
• highlight search text on webpage
• match case of search text on webpage
• search for text when i start typing (quick find)
• dim background on search w/in webpage - safari
• match whole word only on search w/in page - opera
• option to search in current window, local files, internet, web cache - iCab
• option to search 2 search engines at once - iCab
• search and replace - omniweb
• search for regular expressions - omniweb
• find in all tabs - shiira

Other

• writing direction in search and location bar - safari
• user profile to save search and other settings

Screenshots

Search Engines

Set default search engine

Internet Explorer:

Safari:

Flock:

Maxthon:

Multi-engine search

Maxthon:

Opera:

SeaMonkey:

Address Bar

iCab:

OmniWeb:

Opera:

Safari:

Internet Explorer:

SeaMonkey:

Search Bar

Safari SnapBack button takes you back to search results:

Safari button clears the search field:

Search Bar settings for the Google Toolbar: