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Yeah, but I don't have Google mapped to a keyboard key, but even if I did, googling for "5 minute timer" (and similar variants, like "1 minute timer" or "30 sec

by gbl08ma 10y ago

Yeah, but I don't have Google mapped to a keyboard key, but even if I did, googling for "5 minute timer" (and similar variants, like "1 minute timer" or "30 seconds timer") yields the usual search results for me. At least Cortana is (at least since the Anniversary Update) consistent with what features it offers to each user, unlike Google which will randomly not present those built-in tools. And since I can't try it, I'm wondering: to use Google's timer, do I need to leave the tab open until it ends? Because in that case it's nowhere as nice as Cortana, which just goes into background...

Sylos 10y ago
I just tried it, and it seems to me like it shows the timer only on google.com, not on the Google-domain for my country, so maybe that was a factor. The other comment pointed out more inconsistencies, though, so might really just be Google's algorithm judging at random who's allowed to get a timer and who not. DuckDuckGo's implementation [0] seems more robust to me, but if you don't use it as your default search engine, it's probably easier anyways to just click on the first link in the Google search results (or use Cortana obviously). And yeah, you do need to leave the tab open until it ends. I don't see that as that big of a flaw as you do, since most people have a browser open all the time anyways, but yeah, whatever floats your boat. Certainly isn't terrible to have another option for it. [0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=5+minute+timer https://duckduckgo.com/?q=5+minute+timer
- gbl08ma 10y ago
  Indeed DuckDuckGo's timer appears to be quite nice, I have it as my main search engine but didn't notice it had that. It's probably a recent addition. I agree that having to keep a browser tab open is not much of an issue, but for longer timers (hours) that can be an issue (although for that case, alarms are better suited... but then you need an alarm app, and while Cortana and Google Now will AFAIK set the alarm on their respective platforms, DuckDuckGo has no "platform" to do it...).

by gbl08ma 10y ago

Sylos 10y ago

I just tried it, and it seems to me like it shows the timer only on google.com, not on the Google-domain for my country, so maybe that was a factor. The other comment pointed out more inconsistencies, though, so might really just be Google's algorithm judging at random who's allowed to get a timer and who not. DuckDuckGo's implementation [0] seems more robust to me, but if you don't use it as your default search engine, it's probably easier anyways to just click on the first link in the Google search results (or use Cortana obviously). And yeah, you do need to leave the tab open until it ends. I don't see that as that big of a flaw as you do, since most people have a browser open all the time anyways, but yeah, whatever floats your boat. Certainly isn't terrible to have another option for it. [0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=5+minute+timer https://duckduckgo.com/?q=5+minute+timer

gbl08ma 10y ago
Indeed DuckDuckGo's timer appears to be quite nice, I have it as my main search engine but didn't notice it had that. It's probably a recent addition. I agree that having to keep a browser tab open is not much of an issue, but for longer timers (hours) that can be an issue (although for that case, alarms are better suited... but then you need an alarm app, and while Cortana and Google Now will AFAIK set the alarm on their respective platforms, DuckDuckGo has no "platform" to do it...).