Microsoft Internet Explorer 8: Mixed Reactions - IE8 Improvements in Search
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Lifehacker said some good things about the search tools to be found in Internet Explorer 8. They noted that power user features included suggestions from the search bar, instant “answers” and right-click “accelerators.” The comment about instant answers seems to be a reference to what Microsoft is calling “Visual Search.” Visual search lets you see images that can provide you with an immediate answer to your question, thanks in part to partnerships with other search providers. “For example, typing 'Seattle weather' with Live Search will instantly show you a preview of the current weather directly in the Search Box drop-down,” explains Microsoft on its IE 8 web site.
These and other features not only work with in-house Microsoft products, but other providers that you've chosen to install. So if Google is your preferred search engine, IE 8 pulls results from there.
Acknowledging that many users treat the address bar like a search engine, IE 8 will now provide suggestions from the user's chosen search engine if they put a question mark in front of their query. The browser will also search for titles and URLs of pages you've previously visited that match the text you've typed – another nod to user behavior in that people often search for pages they've examined previously.
IE 8 makes effective use of colored tabs, a very welcome addition. If you like to open search results in separate tabs, IE will give all related tabs the same color. So if you searched for “Batman” and opened several links, IE 8 would give them one color; if you later searched for “Superman” in the same session and opened several links, their tabs would show a different color, allowing you to easily distinguish between the two superheroes. As an additional convenience, you can close entire tab groups, not just single tabs.
Power searchers should take a close look at IE 8's “accelerators.” An accelerator lets users speed up their everyday online tasks by simply highlighting text from a web page and clicking a blue Accelerator icon that appears above the text. Accelerators let users get driving directions, translate and define words, email content to their friends, and more. Users can add, delete, enable and disable accelerators by clicking on Manage Add-ons from the Tools button. Microsoft even provides an accelerators gallery to help users customize their browser and make it a much more effective tool for the ways they explore content online.
The accelerator gallery is well worth a look. It includes the ones you would expect from Microsoft that provide the ability to send email instantly with Hotmail, get instant prices with Live Search Products, and map addresses with LiveMaps. But it also includes accelerators that let users map addresses with Yahoo Local Maps, find and preview eBay items, use Google to define words and find news stories, and more.
Next: Possible IE 8 Issues >>
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