3 ms·

Who was the one with the original idea to make the url bar double as a search bar (I mean person, not company - i assume the first company to do it was google?)

RockRobotRock 3y ago
https://www.jcchouinard.com/google-omnibox/ https://www.jcchouinard.com/google-omnibox/
- ForkMeOnTinder 3y ago
  I don't have a source to cite, but I remember this being a Firefox extension before Chrome existed. Chrome gave it a cool name though
  - yen223 3y ago
    Yeah, I remembered always installing a specific Firefox extension to get the unified URL + search bar I think it was called Ubiquity?
- kostadin 3y ago
  Pretty sure it was Nicholas Jitkoff[1] and his team. He had done Quicksilver[2] a few years back which popularized this single input interface for osx desktop. [1] https://nicholas.jitkoff.com/ https://nicholas.jitkoff.com/ [2] https://qsapp.com/ https://qsapp.com/
  - RockRobotRock 3y ago
    Makes sense. His name is on some of the patents.
threeseed 3y ago
Apple changed it back in 2013. Not sure who invented it though. https://web.archive.org/web/20130607000755/http://apple.com/safari/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130607000755/http://apple.com/...
M4v3R 3y ago
The first time I saw it was in Google Chrome way back when Firefox still had more traction. Back then both Firefox and Internet Explorer had separate url and search fields.
netsharc 3y ago
God damn kids, get off my lawn! Here's a video of IE5 on Windows 98, at 0:45 one of the dropdown suggestions is "search for ...": https://youtu.be/K1OyEMsF9mc?t=45 https://youtu.be/K1OyEMsF9mc?t=45
- Aeolun 3y ago
  Yeah, but it doesn’t immediately search. I think that was the real revolution.
ksjskskskkk 3y ago
it was a group effort. started with ISP selling your mistyped dns queries to google or whichever search engine they could sign a deal. from there there was a race to capture as much mistyped domains until google had the end-game idea to pay Firefox to send non-standards domains to google directly, not even wait for it to fail dns resolution. when later google launched Chrome, initially as a cost saving for the firefox deal, they dialed the dns to search hack so aggressively that they broke the internet (search for chrome type ahead incident). all search engines (called portals at some point in time) goal was to be the dns replacement. AOL had "keywords" which they advertised heavily in their tv channels like TNT ("we will be back with Terminator. see more at Terminator keyword on AOL")
- ksjskskskkk 3y ago
  lol. kids down vote literal history
justinludwig 3y ago
This was part of the original Netscape 6 pre-releases in the late 90s. Looks like the search button was added to the URL bar for milestone 11: http://www.andrewturnbull.net/mozilla/history.html http://www.andrewturnbull.net/mozilla/history.html

RockRobotRock 3y ago

https://www.jcchouinard.com/google-omnibox/ https://www.jcchouinard.com/google-omnibox/

ForkMeOnTinder 3y ago
I don't have a source to cite, but I remember this being a Firefox extension before Chrome existed. Chrome gave it a cool name though
- yen223 3y ago
  Yeah, I remembered always installing a specific Firefox extension to get the unified URL + search bar I think it was called Ubiquity?
kostadin 3y ago
Pretty sure it was Nicholas Jitkoff[1] and his team. He had done Quicksilver[2] a few years back which popularized this single input interface for osx desktop. [1] https://nicholas.jitkoff.com/ https://nicholas.jitkoff.com/ [2] https://qsapp.com/ https://qsapp.com/
- RockRobotRock 3y ago
  Makes sense. His name is on some of the patents.

threeseed 3y ago

Apple changed it back in 2013. Not sure who invented it though. https://web.archive.org/web/20130607000755/http://apple.com/safari/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130607000755/http://apple.com/...

M4v3R 3y ago

The first time I saw it was in Google Chrome way back when Firefox still had more traction. Back then both Firefox and Internet Explorer had separate url and search fields.

netsharc 3y ago

God damn kids, get off my lawn! Here's a video of IE5 on Windows 98, at 0:45 one of the dropdown suggestions is "search for ...": https://youtu.be/K1OyEMsF9mc?t=45 https://youtu.be/K1OyEMsF9mc?t=45

Aeolun 3y ago
Yeah, but it doesn’t immediately search. I think that was the real revolution.

ksjskskskkk 3y ago

it was a group effort. started with ISP selling your mistyped dns queries to google or whichever search engine they could sign a deal. from there there was a race to capture as much mistyped domains until google had the end-game idea to pay Firefox to send non-standards domains to google directly, not even wait for it to fail dns resolution. when later google launched Chrome, initially as a cost saving for the firefox deal, they dialed the dns to search hack so aggressively that they broke the internet (search for chrome type ahead incident). all search engines (called portals at some point in time) goal was to be the dns replacement. AOL had "keywords" which they advertised heavily in their tv channels like TNT ("we will be back with Terminator. see more at Terminator keyword on AOL")

ksjskskskkk 3y ago
lol. kids down vote literal history

justinludwig 3y ago

This was part of the original Netscape 6 pre-releases in the late 90s. Looks like the search button was added to the URL bar for milestone 11: http://www.andrewturnbull.net/mozilla/history.html http://www.andrewturnbull.net/mozilla/history.html