I have to admit that this Firefox extension is so simple yet offers a few features that should undoubtedly be built-into Firefox. The SearchLoad Options extension only does three things:
- It allows you to setup the Search Box to clear itself after a specified interval (0 to 99 seconds). This is useful for me because I hate having to manually clear it out when I am about to perform another search.
- You can also customize which search engine will be your default one. Sure, you can already do that in Firefox but the key here is that it will reset the search engine back to the default after a specified interval (0 to 99 seconds). If I’m using one of the other search engines I typically forget to change it back to the default when I’m done, but this solves that problem.
- Choose whether your search gets loaded in the current tab, new tab, or a new background tab.
There is no doubt that resetting the search engine is probably the best feature of the extension, but I am also using the others as well. This is the last release of the extension to support Firefox 1.0.x all the way to 2.0.0.x (future versions will only support Firefox 2 and above). I noticed that there is a screenshot up on the preview page of what version 0.3 will look like. It appears that it doesn’t offer any new features, but it will incorporate itself right into the Options dialog for Firefox.
The extension does make searching a little easier for me but I still think that Flock takes the crown when it comes to having the most functional Search Box. It shows you instant results from Yahoo!, your favorites, and your local history. My favorite thing is that it lists your other search engines under a “Search Elsewhere” category. If you click on one of those search engines it will open up the search results for that site in a tab, but it never actually changes your current search engine.
Flock obviously has a partnership with Yahoo which is why they provide the live results from them instead of Google, which is what Firefox uses. In my opinion Flock is a genius for making the Search Box so powerful because it will encourage people to keep it instead of looking for extensions or toolbars that add a better Search Box. After all, Mozilla did earn $52.9 million in 2005 from the Search Box that is built-into Firefox, so why not make it even better so that more and more people will want to use it?
News Source: Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog
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Tags: Firefox, Freeware, Software
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Nice find Ryan, I’ll have to try this one since I change search engines quite frequently and also forget to set it back…
Thanks for sharing…
No problem, I always try to share the cool extensions that I come across!
Wow, this extension scratches me right where I itch. All three of these features should be built into Firefox 3
Ah, thank you, Ryan. I am constantly taking issue with these three things. I already had done the “open search in a new tab” hack manually. The only feature I would like to see is that, if you already have a blank tab open, it does the search in there. That would help if you forgot that you had the new tab hack on (that happens to me a lot ;)). It’s also kind of annoying that it keeps clearing the search history, but that’s a sacrifice I’ll have to make. Also, I agree, these features should be in Firefox 3, minus the annoyances.
Guess I forgot to mention that it already does that.
I think if you check the box that says “Keep Blank Tab” then it will always open a new tab even if it is blank. I, however, am able to search and when that box is unchecked it will always use my blank tab.
It’s important to note that the search box will only reset after the search was performed. If you decide against the search then the box will not reset.
Um, my bad :oops:. I thought that was what the “Keep Blank Tab” option did, but it didn’t work for me. After you confirmed that that was what it was supposed to do, I got the sinking suspicion that my problems were because of my old manual fix. I went back to about:config, reverted my changes, and lo and behold, it works! It still clears my search history every time I restart, though, much to my annoyance :(. Oh well.
Excellent fine Ryan. For compulsive people like me, the automatic reset kicks name-brand ass!
Yes, I have always been compulsive about this type of thing myself. Glad you like it!
can you plz tell me whether you are using any addons for firefox which makes its top title bar black as I an see from your screen shot ?? or you are using any XP theme ?? plz do reply… I am really eager to know…. and I want my Firefox title bar black as yours… thnx in advance…
It is the Zune theme for Windows XP.