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> There is a reason for that – as a rule, browsers don’t really want you to use history. They want you to search and find things multiple times because search r

> There is a reason for that – as a rule, browsers don’t really want you to use history. They want you to search and find things multiple times because search royalties are part of their business model. I think that that's a little paranoid. There's just little demand for a revamped history tab. I like this change a lot, but it's certainly a case of not knowing I wanted it until I saw it.

napoleoncomplex 10y ago
It might be paranoid from the aspect of history, but this is something that I definitely noticed with the URL bar when moving from Firefox to Chrome. Chrome will often offer the first result as a search query, instead of a website I visited before. Feels very clear that it's a big part of their business model. Firefox is much more aggressive in serving history URLs. If I type "videos" in Firefox, it will give me "reddit.com/r/videos" as the first result, since I've been there plenty of times, but Chrome insists on offering the first result as a generic Google query for "videos". Related sidenote, Firefox was also way superior in remembering which letters I type to go to which site in a more broad way. Chrome does it on a very basic level, prioritizing the sites that have the same string on the top level domain. Example, if I type "news" Chrome is always going to offer me sites that begin with "news" such as "news.ycombinator.com", even if I more often end up going to "randomsite.com/news" or "randomsite.com" whose page title is "News!" when typing that. Firefox remembers my preference, which means that after a few days of Firefox use, I'll have a bunch of 2 letter combos that take me to the exact site I want ("ne" to Hacker News, "vi" to reddit videos, "ap" to an apartment listing website which has "ap somewhere deep in their URL, or just in the title of the website, etc.), while Chrome will only give me top level URLs, and feels as useless on week 10 as it did on week 1. For sites where I don't remember the URL, I'll usually end up googling the page title in Chrome, while Firefox would serve me exactly what I need from history. Part of all of that is just shit UX on Chrome's part, but it's a safe bet that shit UX drives significant revenue for Google.
- morsch 10y ago
  I never made the connection that the poor UX leads to more search results traffic (makes sense), but I've definitely noticed that the URL bar in Chrome is much worse than the one in Firefox. I remember the ridicule Mozilla got when they introduced the "awesome bar" (doesn't look like they're still calling it that), but it really did turn out pretty awesome. It replaces both bookmarks and history for me -- which is incredible if you think about it, those are both two very heavyweight interfaces. It also makes using Chrome very frustrating, since I keep entering keywords that I know Firefox would have indexed (such as a ticket number in a bugtracker), while Chrome sometimes does and sometimes doesn't.
- yread 10y ago
  One thing that Chrome's address box has over Firefox is speed. Sometimes I (mindlessly) press f and enter expecting FF to autocomplete to facebook but I get taken to google search for f. (Which of course has facebook.com as the first result)
  - imron 10y ago
    Setup a keyword bookmark in Firefox for F and this problem will be solved.
- DavidWanjiru 10y ago
  About remembering which letters I type to go to which site, I assumed that's just the latest and greatest with browsers, and loved it without noticing that I do. But now that I know it's a Firefox feature, I'll knowingly love it now.
- theonemind 10y ago
  You've noticed more details than I have, but I keep using firefox over chrome because Firefox's awesomebar wipes the floor with what chrome is doing in my daily workflow. I use a lot of intranet sites/internal web applications continually throughout my workday, identifying a lot of unique resoures, and firefox works great at me typing a few characters of a resource ID or URL or page title and finding it out of my history. Chrome feels terrible at it.
lucideer 10y ago
It may be paranoid to believe it's fully and consciously intentional, but it also comes down to general tendency and mindset. Particularly in Chrome, developing a browser for a search company, with search in mind, and investing a lot of time and energy in making the browser "good at search" and integrated well with search, will naturally lead to a search-first mindset in developers, whether intentional or not.
- asadotzler 10y ago
  Google's business model is advertising. Replace all your instances of "search" with "ads" and it reads more accurately.
maaaats 10y ago
No, it's absolutely true for Chrome. One of the reasons I went back to Firefox, as Chrome makes it intentionally impossible to find things from your history.
zipperhead 10y ago
If they want to monetize history via search they could still do that but as a side bar or some other mechanism. i.e., Provide extensive, rich history tracking, but also add some sort of optional search based on relevant context (just please do not make it automatic).
anigbrowl 10y ago
There's just little demand As Henry Ford apocryphally said, 'If I had asked people what they wanted they would have told me to bring them a faster horse.'

napoleoncomplex 10y ago

It might be paranoid from the aspect of history, but this is something that I definitely noticed with the URL bar when moving from Firefox to Chrome. Chrome will often offer the first result as a search query, instead of a website I visited before. Feels very clear that it's a big part of their business model. Firefox is much more aggressive in serving history URLs. If I type "videos" in Firefox, it will give me "reddit.com/r/videos" as the first result, since I've been there plenty of times, but Chrome insists on offering the first result as a generic Google query for "videos". Related sidenote, Firefox was also way superior in remembering which letters I type to go to which site in a more broad way. Chrome does it on a very basic level, prioritizing the sites that have the same string on the top level domain. Example, if I type "news" Chrome is always going to offer me sites that begin with "news" such as "news.ycombinator.com", even if I more often end up going to "randomsite.com/news" or "randomsite.com" whose page title is "News!" when typing that. Firefox remembers my preference, which means that after a few days of Firefox use, I'll have a bunch of 2 letter combos that take me to the exact site I want ("ne" to Hacker News, "vi" to reddit videos, "ap" to an apartment listing website which has "ap somewhere deep in their URL, or just in the title of the website, etc.), while Chrome will only give me top level URLs, and feels as useless on week 10 as it did on week 1. For sites where I don't remember the URL, I'll usually end up googling the page title in Chrome, while Firefox would serve me exactly what I need from history. Part of all of that is just shit UX on Chrome's part, but it's a safe bet that shit UX drives significant revenue for Google.

morsch 10y ago
I never made the connection that the poor UX leads to more search results traffic (makes sense), but I've definitely noticed that the URL bar in Chrome is much worse than the one in Firefox. I remember the ridicule Mozilla got when they introduced the "awesome bar" (doesn't look like they're still calling it that), but it really did turn out pretty awesome. It replaces both bookmarks and history for me -- which is incredible if you think about it, those are both two very heavyweight interfaces. It also makes using Chrome very frustrating, since I keep entering keywords that I know Firefox would have indexed (such as a ticket number in a bugtracker), while Chrome sometimes does and sometimes doesn't.
yread 10y ago
One thing that Chrome's address box has over Firefox is speed. Sometimes I (mindlessly) press f and enter expecting FF to autocomplete to facebook but I get taken to google search for f. (Which of course has facebook.com as the first result)
- imron 10y ago
  Setup a keyword bookmark in Firefox for F and this problem will be solved.
DavidWanjiru 10y ago
About remembering which letters I type to go to which site, I assumed that's just the latest and greatest with browsers, and loved it without noticing that I do. But now that I know it's a Firefox feature, I'll knowingly love it now.
theonemind 10y ago
You've noticed more details than I have, but I keep using firefox over chrome because Firefox's awesomebar wipes the floor with what chrome is doing in my daily workflow. I use a lot of intranet sites/internal web applications continually throughout my workday, identifying a lot of unique resoures, and firefox works great at me typing a few characters of a resource ID or URL or page title and finding it out of my history. Chrome feels terrible at it.

lucideer 10y ago

It may be paranoid to believe it's fully and consciously intentional, but it also comes down to general tendency and mindset. Particularly in Chrome, developing a browser for a search company, with search in mind, and investing a lot of time and energy in making the browser "good at search" and integrated well with search, will naturally lead to a search-first mindset in developers, whether intentional or not.

asadotzler 10y ago
Google's business model is advertising. Replace all your instances of "search" with "ads" and it reads more accurately.

maaaats 10y ago

No, it's absolutely true for Chrome. One of the reasons I went back to Firefox, as Chrome makes it intentionally impossible to find things from your history.

zipperhead 10y ago

If they want to monetize history via search they could still do that but as a side bar or some other mechanism. i.e., Provide extensive, rich history tracking, but also add some sort of optional search based on relevant context (just please do not make it automatic).

anigbrowl 10y ago

There's just little demand As Henry Ford apocryphally said, 'If I had asked people what they wanted they would have told me to bring them a faster horse.'