AcidSearch - Enhanced Google search bar in Safari

Sep 01, '04 11:08:00AM

Contributed by: robg

AcidSearch icon The macosxhints Rating:
8 of 10
[Score: 8 out of 10]

Though I primarily use Firefox for my browsing needs, I do run Safari occasionally -- primarily for Flash sites, as I have Flash blocked in Firefox. But sometimes I also just start using Safari for the day and keep using it (I'm not particularly vehement about my browser preferences). When I do, though, I find myself missing a feature found in Firefox -- the ability to have more than just Google in the search box located in the URL bar. That's where AcidSearch comes into play. AcidSearch is a Safari plug-in that adds a number of pre-defined search engines (including macosxhints), as well as the ability for you to easily add more definitions.

Once installed, Safari works just as before -- except you now have a handy drop-down menu, as seen at left (larger version). Select your search engine, then enter your search phrase and hit Enter, and off you go. If that's not enough for you, you can use the Edit Search Channels option to create your own definitions, change the default engine, and place the channels in any order you wish, complete with separators.

According to the documentation, the last-chosen search engine should remain active until you change it again. However, in my testing, it always reverted to the default engine after one search. I'm not sure if this is particular to my machine or not, but it's a small annoyance -- having multiple engines available is a huge timesaver.

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Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20040901072507813