Are you using the all new Internet Explorer 8? Of course you aren’t. But, just in case you are, Alex Chitu at the unofficial Google Operating System blog sets out some new search features in IE8 that make it just a little more “spayshul.” Check out the link for screenshots and more detailed explanations. However, if you just want the quick lowdown, check these out:
- prefix a query with a “?” in the search bar to find results from your default search engine;
- see previously visited pages matching your typed text (titles and URLs only);
- use as search engine direclty without typing the query in the IE search box;
- find matches of the query in search results, using “find”;
- automatically apply distinct colors to tabs to facilitate identification;
- employ “search provides” to familiar sites, such as Wikipedia, Yahoo, Live Search and Amazon;
- use “accelerators” to secure added useful information about selected text on a page, such as address mapping, translation and bookmarking from a little menu overlay;
Nice for IE8 – these tweaks get it a bit closer to the competition, which is still enjoying a commanding lead.
Hat tip to Lifehacker.
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Advocate's Studio 
See: http://bit.ly/vJKbW
For readers who use Firefox and IE8, I wanted your readers to be aware that Firefox has a version of Accelerators too, it is called “KALLOUT – Accelerators for Firefox” It’s available as a free add-on through Firefox. See: http://bit.ly/vJKbW
Selection-based search is really helpful. One GREAT feature of KallOut is BestGuess. The challenge with selection-based search is that the user has to figure out which one to apply to his selection. It’s a little clunky once you get more than two or three. KallOut does a super job figuring out which accelerator you need to use for a given selection-based search request. Kallout — Accelerators for Firefox is actually kind of spooky when it works so well.
Check it out! I agree that it’s a big step forward for the user to have the selection-based search bundled into the browser by default, however.
“KALLOUT – Accelerators for Firefox” is available through Mozilla at http://bit.ly/vJKbW
-JB
Thanks, James, for the information! I am a Firefox user myself and I know a lot of people who read this are as well, so your points are definitely helpful.