Use the (really) minimalist Google front page. | Hacker News Reader

Use the (really) minimalist Google front page.

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15 pointsgarethfleming13 comments

If you think the Google front page is a little ... cluttered, try this cookie hack to see the uber-minimalist, fading front page that Google has been experimenting with.

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I don't like going to the front page or even using the browser's search box. Better to type CTR-L to get to the address bar and then use a shortcut registered "g". "g terms" and you are quickly at the results.

alias "g" to "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%s

Putting this in the address bar also means you get incremental history of previous searches. If the term was long, you don't need to type it again. If you need to modify a recent search slightly, it's there as a template.

I like using smart bookmarks like this for specialty searches, e.g. only searching Wikipedia

http://www.google.com/search?q=%s+site%3Aen.wikipedia.org

But if I'm searching the entire internet, I just hit CTRL+K to jump to the search box. Beatcha by two keystrokes! :-p

Agreed. But like I said, you won't get the benefits of the history incremental search. Also, I maybe should have mentioned I have a lot of other one letter shortcuts like that so "g" fits rights in.

Actually, you do get history for your searches, and Google's autosuggest, in modern versions of Firefox. What you say used to be true, but from what I can see CTRL-K strictly dominates a bookmark keyword if you're starting from scratch. That said, if you've already got "CTRL-L g space" in your fingers, it's not so much better that you should switch.

You also get this in Safari.

Incidentally, for Mac users it's incredibly trivial to set up a hotkey for the search box. I have it mapped to CMD-E, and it greatly eases my web flow.

I'm on Firefox 3.5 and didn't see that behavior.

In about:config, do you have browser.search.suggest.enabled set to True? I have a firefox right here and it's working fine.

(since that's probably obscure as the joke is old, that's a reference to the ancient copied at http://www.ahajokes.com/lig069.html )

Chrome just plain has this functionality nailed (I hate to sound like a chrome fanboy, but this is truth).

There is only one box, it's a combo location/search box. Type in a url: you navigate to that url. Type in a search string: you navigate to the search (using google or whatever search provider you designate) for that string.

I'm not sure if this is pre-release chrome 4.0 specific or not, but when you visit different sites (wikipedia, amazon, youtube, stackoverflow, etc.) the first time you perform a search on those sites they are automagically registered in your browser as available search engines. Then, to search those sites specifically direct from the address bar you simply start typing part of the site name/url, hit tab to autocomplete the search provider (much in the way the awesome bar works in firefox), type your search terms and hit the enter key. Thus, 'wiki+tab+napsack problem+enter' takes you to the wikipedia article on the napsack problem, and 'yout+tab+keyboard cat+enter' searches youtube for "keyboard cat" videos, and 'ama+tab+coders at work+enter' searches amazon for "coders at work". It's a very elegant, very practical design that I hope catches on.

We already do this. It's the "Search" box on Firefox, Safari, Opera, Galeon and Konqueror.

The only time I visit the google homepage to search something is when I'm stuck with Internet explorer.

Better yet, it's the location box in Chrome. Turns out, it's fairly trivial to tell the difference between a url and a search string. I wish firefox would adopt this design as well, it just makes sense.

I don't think I'll ever use this, but I love it, for the simple reason that it consolidates Google's famous blank design. Going to that page and seeing the logo and the blank box feels really comforting, like Google's making an effort to commit to their simplicity.

http://www.google.com/ncr

Love this: it's about remembering why people come to the page. Grandparent-proof.

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