Most (if not all) modern browsers support multiple search engines which are configurable and selectable from a dropdown in the omnibar. There’s no need to remember shortcuts or add a dedicated toolbar anymore.
Comment on Google Search referrals to the web have plummeted, AI links are 'less than 1%' of traffic
TrojanRoomCoffeePot@lemmy.world 3 weeks agoRelieved to find this response below the others. Why TF would you search for a site i) whose URL you know? ii) waste space on your browser by adding the website as a search bar on your browser’s menu bar? How much time do people anticipate they’ll save by avoiding typing Wikipedia.org into the address field?
some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
TBF the dropdown usually requires fiddling with the mouse, while keywords for search engines allow sticking with the keyboard. Since I use the sites regularly, it’s no problem for me to remember the keywords.
some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah, fair enough. If it works, it works, and to each their own.
The suggestion from the user I replied to, of needing a browser toolbar, did get in my craw a bit. Like what is it 2005? I don’t think I’ve even used one since before Chrome was in beta.
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah that was weird, idk when that person last looked at their options regarding search.
emeralddawn45@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Wikipedia I would never do this for, but site:reddit.com or even just adding the word Reddit to the end of my search term has been my trick to finding good information for like 15 years now. It’s more useful now than ever, despite how shitty reddit has gotten. Reddit’s search is terrible though and searching the same thing using Reddit’s search rarely gives good results.
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s not what I mean. I have a keyword like ‘wik’ set to take me to Wikipedia’s search, and if I type ‘wik black pus’, i get the page for that term.
I also have an extension that shows a popup with buttons for different search engines whenever I select text on a page, and I have a similar thing on the phone for text shared from any app. Each of these methods has about twenty-seven sites configured in it. Considering that I look up things on these sites easily a dozen times a day, it’s ridiculous to say that this doesn’t save me time over opening each site.