Quick Search with IE9

June 23, 2011

One of my complaints with IE9 was that it lost the dedicated search control. Instead you enter everything right into the Address Bar. This isn’t an issue when you enter “African Elephant” but if you enter a single word (say “Elephant”) it needs to figure out if there is a valid destination (http://elephant is a valid URI format) before it decides to search for Elephant. If you’re on a large network, that can take some time. Today I learned a new trick; CTRL-E. This drops you directly into the address bar with a “?” at the front. Enter anything, it will immediately execute a search. Now I can find Elephants right away; which if you had a 10 year old in your house obsessed with Elephants wouldn’t seem as nearly as strange.