search is where it’s at

The new Firefox 3 browser is out! You should go download it.

It has a slightly new look and feel, it also uses a lot less memory. I really like how when you’re on a page where you enter a password, it doesn’t popup a window anymore asking you if you want to remember your password. Instead it will continue to the next page, and ask you in a bar if you want to remember the password. This makes things flow smoother and faster. I’ll find out the other changes/features as I use the browser more and more.

The most noticeable change is the address bar, it now uses search to show you the most relevant URL. This means you can type in any portion of a URL and the address bar will show you the matching URLs. In fact, you can even type on the title of a page (that’s not part of the URL) and it will still show you the proper URL matches. This is great for moments where you don’t remember the exact domain name or URL but remember only portions of it. The ability to search is awesome.

This takes us to Google Desktop. This program indexes all the files on your computer and even the web pages you’ve visited. So now, if you forget the domain name and URL, but you remember some of the content on the page, Google Desktop will search amongst the pages that you’ve visited. If you download a file and forget where you saved it, or you forget the exact name, no problem. Just press the CTRL button twice, the search prompt makes itself available, type in your search query and you’re good to go.

You know how when you’ve installed hundreds of programs on your computer and Window’s Start Menu becomes huge! Well now, instead of looking through the menu to launch your program, you can just search for it. This makes life a lot easier.

Addendum
Google Desktop also indexes your email (Gmail email). Which means that you can search for your email even when you’re not connected to the intertubes. It doesn’t index Gtalk though.
End Addendum

Some of you may be concerned about Google indexing everything that’s on your computer and then transferring that data to their grand central database. This is a valid concern, though they say that they don’t do this. But Google already knows everything. Google knows what you want (because you use Google to search for it), Google knows who you talk to (because you use Gmail and Gtalk), Google also knows what you say to the people you talk to, Google knows where you live (because you use Google Maps), Google knows what data you pull in (because you use Google Reader), Google knows what you’re doing on the certain day (because you use Google Calendar), Google knows what videos you watch (because you use Google’s YouTube), Google even knows what blog posts you have in draft mode (because you use Google’s Blogger (though WordPress has but a huge dent here, but Google still has all of those indexed in their search anyway)). Google just knows. Google knows. Google.

Try out Google Desktop (which interestingly and surprisingly comes in Linux and Mac versions as well), it will make things faster to look for. Just give in… to Google. You already have.