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Here are some of my Chrome autocompletes: n (news.ycombinator.com), mu (music.google.com), ma (mail.google.com), a (amazon.com), gi (github.com), q (quora.com),

Here are some of my Chrome autocompletes: n (news.ycombinator.com), mu (music.google.com), ma (mail.google.com), a (amazon.com), gi (github.com), q (quora.com), l (localhost), i (images.google.com), c (coursera.com). I don't think I even give it a second thought after pressing these characters. I just do 'n' and Return. Your experience might be worse, probably because you haven't used chrome enough.

bhauer 13y ago
To be clear, if I start typing the beginning of the domain name, Chrome will correctly identify my intent. But if I type a fragment of the URL (or multiple fragments), it assumes I want to run a search. In your example, you said "n" leads to news.ycombinator.com. In Firefox, "n" leads to me to news.cnet.com, which I also visit fairly regularly. Meanwhile, "yc", or "hac", or "nator" yield Hacker News. In Chrome, "yc" yields a suggestion of "yc.edu" (whatever that is) and "hac" yields "hacked games." Part of my distaste for this is that it reveals that everything I type into the omnibar is sent to Google for analysis. I have once accidentally pasted a password into the omnibar field and had a sudden panic. I know it's Google, and DBE, and all of that. But still. Back to the fragments point, I might remember a site had something to do with "combi" in the name. Type that into Firefox and it knows what I want, even if I've only visited it once several months ago. Google thinks I want "combivent respimat." No joke. Apparently it's a drug. In fact, as I experiment right now, I can't even get Chrome to suggest news.ycombinator.com by typing "combinator" into the omnibar. As a user of Chrome I am required to remember the domain started with 'y'. In Firefox, the browser tries to help me. As an exercise, can you tell us what sites are suggested when you type "combinator", "host", "hub" (this one is an example of a plausible case--"It was something-hub", type "hub", "oh yeah, github!"), etc?

bhauer 13y ago

To be clear, if I start typing the beginning of the domain name, Chrome will correctly identify my intent. But if I type a fragment of the URL (or multiple fragments), it assumes I want to run a search. In your example, you said "n" leads to news.ycombinator.com. In Firefox, "n" leads to me to news.cnet.com, which I also visit fairly regularly. Meanwhile, "yc", or "hac", or "nator" yield Hacker News. In Chrome, "yc" yields a suggestion of "yc.edu" (whatever that is) and "hac" yields "hacked games." Part of my distaste for this is that it reveals that everything I type into the omnibar is sent to Google for analysis. I have once accidentally pasted a password into the omnibar field and had a sudden panic. I know it's Google, and DBE, and all of that. But still. Back to the fragments point, I might remember a site had something to do with "combi" in the name. Type that into Firefox and it knows what I want, even if I've only visited it once several months ago. Google thinks I want "combivent respimat." No joke. Apparently it's a drug. In fact, as I experiment right now, I can't even get Chrome to suggest news.ycombinator.com by typing "combinator" into the omnibar. As a user of Chrome I am required to remember the domain started with 'y'. In Firefox, the browser tries to help me. As an exercise, can you tell us what sites are suggested when you type "combinator", "host", "hub" (this one is an example of a plausible case--"It was something-hub", type "hub", "oh yeah, github!"), etc?