Add IE Features - New keywords (yeah, the ones Firefox users are so proud of)

Right, someone trying to convince me why Firefox is so much better than IE brought up the issue of being able to type "google searchterm" into his Adress bar and immediately being taken to the site.

Well, here's some news: IE can do that to, along with imdb, whois, vandale, php and everything else that uses parameters as query terms.

How? Look at this registry key and see the light:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl\google]
@="http://www.google.com/search?q=%s"
" "="+"
"%"="%25"
"&"="%26"
"+"="%2B"

%s is where your search term comes, and the name of the key is the prefix.

Another example to get the hang of it:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl\imdb]
@="http://us.imdb.com/Find?%s"
" "="+"
"%"="%25"
"&"="%26"
"+"="%2B"

Got it? Sweet, enjoy your new IE power! ;)

I have uploaded a .reg file which contains altavista, astalavista, cd, download, google, googlenl, imdb, php, sub, vandale, vcd, whois and lucky as search terms. Feel free to invent more :)

Update: Google feeling lucky keyword.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl\lucky]
@="http://www.google.com/search?q=%s&btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky"
" "="+"
"%"="%25"
"&"="%26"
"+"="%2B"

5 Comments

  • I fail to see how having to hack your registry to get a simple feature refutes the benefit of the same feature built in to a competing browser. Shouldn't easy things be ... easy?

  • Well, that's nearly valid, but it does beg the obvious question doesn't it?



    Opening a .reg file may not be difficult for a non-developer, but creating one is.



    Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your viewpoint), keywords are among the least important advantages they've got over IE.

  • I agree. Use what you want, or are used to. So long as you're informed.



    I would, however, strongly discourage people from hacking their registry to get the keyword feature, especially if they don't know what they're doing. If that's an important feature, switch.

  • "It's about the fact that the code is built in apparently, but there's no GUI for it."



    Just want to point out that there is a GUI for it in Mozilla (Firefox)! *sigh*

  • huh? What are you talking about? Is there a dummy version, 'cause I can't follow any longer. I'm just an user who only use ready made programm's. I'm trying Firefox for the moment, but I can hardly find differences between Firefox and IE and no, I don't have the intention to play with reg's in IE neither in Firefox.

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