1. I tend to visit certain sites few times a day. Domaining.com, Moniker, CNN, and a couple of others. Since these are the more frequent sites I visit, when I enter the first letter, Google Chrome automatically picks up the most likely domain I would type. For example, to visit Domaining.com all I need to do is type D and enter. To visit Moniker.com it is a M and enter. This saves me lots of typing and clicking to get to the sites I like most.
The second feature I can’t live without is the application view. With Google Chrome you can you can create a desktop shortcut to a site you tend to stay on a lot and when you use that shortcut, A browser window will open up but without the regular browser navigation stuff you usually use, giving you an application type view of the page you are on. I only have two such shortcuts which I leave open all day long. The first one is Facebook and the second is Flowchart.com, one of our sites.
The third feature I like, from domaining point of view, is the combination of the URL bar with the navigation bar. In the URL bar, type a keyword and hit enter and it does a search on Google for the keyword. This feature also creates “traffic leakage” towards domain, that is, if you have already visited a site and later use the navigation bar to do a search, where the first few letters are similar to the site you have visited previously, it will take you to the site rather then to Google. For example, say you have visited Flowchart.com and later tried to conduct a search for “Flow”. You type “Flow” into the navigation bar and click enter and the results? You will end up on Flowchart.com.
And lastly, the fourt feature I like is the ability ty search a site directly from the navigation bar. For example, if I wish to conduct a search for “Mumbai” on CNN I can type in the navigation bar “CNN.COM MUMBAI” and it browser will show me the CNN site with results for “Mumbai”.
What are your favorite navigation features in your favorite browsers, stuff you just can’t live without? And if you were to design the ultimate browser, how would it look like?
Have a great day,
Sahar
Favorite feature of “browsers” (since all have them these days, but I use FF 95% of the time) is getting to add my bookmarks below the address bar. I have around 20 there… spread across 2 monitors to quickly get to where I want. Probably saves me a combined 2 minutes each day :).
On my hand what refrained my use of Chrome was the impossibility for the Google browser to load toolbars and specially:
No way to see the PR and the Alexa ranking of the site one is visiting!
This give me a big feeling of frustration:
The need to know the PR comes from my SEO origins.
The need to know the Alexa ranking from my internet marketer carreer when I needed to valuate sites as potential publishers.
I admit that domainers don’t need to know these two metrics.
For me it will be more complicate to use the shortcut Chrome feature as I use as much domaining.com that I use domaintools.com
So I will have to press 7 letters to make the difference
Won’t Chrome destroy advertising in most forms on the Net?
you should download google toolbar - it offers drop down suggestions beyond sites you’ve visited.
doing this is awesome as every letter leads to possibilities, you see whats hot, etc.
type-ins get reduced to 2, 3 letters max. blind type-ins become fascinating not dead ends
Sahar,
I like shortcuts too! Who doesn’t ?
I like typing ‘f’ and enter and go straight to Facebook,
or ‘g’ and go straight to google, ‘b’ for bbc news, or ‘ny’ for newyork times..
unfortunately it works only on internet explorer.
Oh,. I’m talking about my homepage of course
http://www.HitWiser.com
PS: I developed HitWiser before google Chrome!
Great post, really help me a lot. Thanks
Great writing and suggestions. Thank you!