Speed Up Your Web Search With Inquisitor

Most, if not, all browsers come with a search bar at the top right hand corner of the window. To perform a search, you simply type in your search term and press Enter. The browser will automatically load the search engine result page with your search term. As easy as that.

Now, the question is: can this search process get any easier?

The answer is Yes, if you are using Inquisitor. You’ll be surprised how much faster, quicker and easier you can now search with the search bar.

Inquisitor is a browser plugin that extends the functionality of the search bar. It makes the search bar more intuitive, responsive and much easier to use. As you type in the search bar, Inquisitor starts to search the web and brings back the result on the fly, and enabling you to access to your search result faster.

Inquisitor is owned by Yahoo and is compatible with Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer 7, 8. It also works in Mac, PC and iPhone.

Once you have installed the respective extension for your browser, it will automatically replace your search bar. To perform an intuitive search, simply type in the search bar. A list of suggestions will appear as soon as you type. The initial result is based on your browser history, but as you type, the list get refined and brings in more relevant result for your search term. In most cases, I am able to find what I want without having to complete the search terms.

Inquisitor also comes with several configuration options that you can set to suit your preferences.

Options that you can configure include:

Auto-complete settings

Inquisitor will attempt to auto-complete your search term as you type. You can either make it auto-complete the entire phrase, current word or do nothing. Personally, I have found that choosing the “auto-complete current word only” option gives you better control of your search results.

Instant result setting

In the dropdown list of suggestion, you can You can choose how the result is displayed, whether website result first or keyword suggestions first.

Display count

Number of website results and keyword suggestions to display in the dropdown list.

Search Engine

The default search engine is Yahoo. You can also set it to Google.

A thing to note here: If you set the search engine to Google, the website result search will cease to work. You will only see keyword suggestions in the dropdown list.

Display links to additional search engines

If you are frequently using Wikipedia, Flickr or any other search engines to perform your search, this is where you add in the additional search engine to the dropdown list.

Conclusion

Depending on how often you use your browser’s search bar, this plugin can be useful/useless to you. For me, it has definitely improved my productivity and enabled me to get my search result much faster and easier. Being cross-platform/cross-browser compatible also make it a highly versatile tool, not to mention that it works great in iPhone and iPod Touch too.

What do you think?

Tags: Browser, Inquisitor, Search bar, search engine, web search