

Google out-Appling Apple at the browser - nate
http://n8.tumblr.com/post/14466066753/google-out-appling-apple

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saithier
I'm happy that the two are separate in Safari. The combined address / search
bar is one of the things that I really don't like about Chrome, and part of
why I don't use it. Searching and typing in an address are distinctly
different tasks.

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danso
How so? Everytime you type something in a search bar, it goes to a search
engine's page anyway? So it's just shorthand for <http://google.com?q=etcetc>

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dissident
I also don't use Chrome because of the combined elements. I think they serve
different purposes and combining them is confusing (at least to somebody
_used_ to having them as separate features). I also use the search bar as a
kind of clipboard, as I'm sure many other people do as well.

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rsoto
I don't agree with it. Chrome is awesome, granted, but it's tightly designed
for making Google more money. Not that it's something wrong with it, but it's
not useful from my perspective (that might or might not be correct).

Let me explain you. When you type something in Chrome's search bar, you are
searching. Firefox, having two bars lets you do different things. On the right
one, you search. On the address bar, it lets you _find_. When I know I want to
go to a wikipedia entry for, say, webkit, I don't have to look at the results.
Go ahead, type "wiki webkit" on your Firefox's address bar* and you won't have
to go through Google as it has the "I'm feeling lucky" behavior.

You can't do that on Chrome. I think that's the reason both Firefox and Safari
are sticking with two bars.

*Note: It might or might not work. Each time I install Firefox I have to set the keyword.URL setting to "[http://www.google.com/search?btnI=&q=](http://www.google.com/search?btnI=&q=) because it stopped working, but that was the old behavior.

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cbs
Even better than the I'm feeling lucky, one of my favorite features of the
firefox address bar is that you can customize the address "X Y" to go to
bookmark X, with the value of Y in the url.

For example, firefox used to come with a bookmark specifically for wikipeida
that allowed you to type "wiki X" and it would go directly to
en.wikipeida.org/wiki/X. At first I thought thats what you were talking about.

We have a few webapps I use to manage stuff, and its just ridiculously faster
for me to use them when I can pop "edit 2342252" or "break add" into the
address bar.

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geoffschmidt
As for why Chrome has so many installs, certainly part of the answer is
marketing. Google has been cross-promoting it from many Google properties.

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rhubarbquid
I'm pretty sure iOS used to have a single search/URL input, but they separated
them out in later releases.

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phil
Early versions of Mobile Safari only showed the address bar. When you tapped
to focus, you got both an address and search bar.

