September 11, 2010

Instant Search in Google Chrome

Google Chrome will add support for instant search, the feature released this week by Google. An early implementation is already available in Chrome Dev Channel and in Chrome Canary build. You can enable this feature by adding the following command-line flag to a Chrome shortcut: --enable-match-preview (in Windows, right-click on the shortcut, select "Properties" and append the flag to the "Target" value).

Chrome's flavor of instant search is quite surprising. As you type a query in Chrome's Omnibox, the browser shows a preview of Google's results for that query. This is suboptimal because it doesn't use Google's predictions, which speed up entering a query. Instead of displaying the results for [weather] when you type "w", Chrome only shows the results for [w].


When you select one of the suggestions from the address bar, Chrome previews the results for that query. If Chrome finds a web page that matches your query, it loads that page. For example, when I type "m" in the Omnibox, Chrome autocompletes my query as http://mail.google.com, since I frequently go to Gmail. If I type "n", Chrome loads Google News. It may be useful for frequently visited pages, but loading a page just because I type a letter in the address bar is a bit too much. This way, you may end up loading a lot of pages while typing a query and that may be distracting and may slow you down.


This feature works even if Google is not the default search engine. Hopefully, it will be considerably improved before the next Chrome release.

{ Thanks, PhistucK. }

26 comments:

  1. I think that it would be best if they would just integrate rich snippets (that 'w' example) into the search bar in chrome, and leave only the websites in your history to show that mini-preview. I'm not sure what effect it would have, but if they were going to do it, that's the way I would recommend that they do.

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  2. A Google employee also confirmed in this thread that the feature is being worked on: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?fid=1f0b4c8023b1e62a00048fd839f42202&hl=en

    I hope that eventually, Google instant results will just show up in the dropdown list of the omnibox. Showing an actual Google results page is just a mess of a way to implement the feature.

    One thing to consider, however, is if you got search results themselves from the omnibox, you would never need to see an actual Google results page. This would mean you would never see ads for the results, unless Google somehow incorporated them into the omnibox results as well. Maybe they could show one non-intrusive sponsored link at the top or bottom of the omnibar, but some users might feel a little uneasy with ads being shown in the browser software itself.

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  3. Well, after using it for one minute, Google blocked me for "sending automated requests" :P

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  4. I think this is pretty dang awesome.

    Yes, some pages like Gmail load slowly (and I believe Gmail loads slower than most pages, to begin with). On the other hand, I love being able to quickly preview wherever it is I'm going.

    I also love it's implementation of the actual Google Instant page (i.e., the Google homepage). I had found myself going to google.com, recently, rather than doing an omnibox search because the results were more robust and comprehensive.

    I love it.

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  5. if you use bing as default search engine it work also !!!!!! it is not exclusive for google search !!!

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  6. Where exactly do I append to target?

    "C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome SxS\Application\chrome.exe --enable-match-preview"

    ??

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  7. How about they just give the users a choice of how the address bar and the page interact with each other. I'm sure they have multiple options that would create a nice combo for everyone to choose from.

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  8. Right now, I would like Google Instant in Chrome for weather, time and definitions, but so far, I'm not that thrill with it. It's nice, but jumping up and down other it.

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  9. Why when I search for "--enable-match-preview" in google (without the quotes) no results are found even though there a billion of sites that contains that phrase?

    Also how do I enable it cuz I didn't found a way to make it work. Thanks

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  10. Right-click the Chrome icon on your Quick Launch Bar (XP and Vista) or in the Taskbar (Windows 7), select Properties and ad --enable-match-preview at the end of the Target: address, making sure to leave a space between the end of the target and the appended flag.

    Make sure you are using a version of Chrome that supports the feature. If you're on the stable or beta channels of Chrome, it won't work. You'll need to switch to the dev channel or download Chrome Canary Build.

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  11. Oh wow, that looks like its gonna be good

    www.real-anonymity.es.tc

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  12. http://www.geekonnet.com/2010/09/google-instant-search-before-you-type.html

    My first impression to google instant

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  13. That's so great and so more powerful !!!!!!!!!!!

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  14. I enabled it an hour back and get the following in the results now -

    We're sorry...

    ... but it appears your computer is sending automated requests.

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  15. Loosing it's fastness this way, because you cannot select results via keyboard shortcuts (I'm feeling lucky feature)

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  16. Is it possible to enable this in Linux or on Mac at this moment?

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  17. Ouw I tried out instant search in chrome canary build. And then google locked me out and thought I was an automated spammer script :-)

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  18. I do nearly all of my queries using Google Chrome's navigation bar. I would certainly love to use Google Instant Search here also.

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  19. I'd jump up and down for this but it's kinda hard to do it online :P

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  20. But there's a bug. If you click a result directly (while the omnibox is still expanded) the browser crashes. At least canary does :)

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  21. +1

    But there's a bug. If you click a result directly (while the omnibox is still expanded) the browser crashes. At least canary does :)

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  22. +
    "But there's a bug. If you click a result directly (while the omnibox is still expanded) the browser crashes. At least canary does :)"

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  23. when i tried to search in, it took me to google.com.np but i want it to show me the result for google.com

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  24. Awesome man... its fast and coool, now I dont need to open another tab to just check for small small stuff like conversion, calculator, definitions

    5 star

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