One of the bigger laments coming from the Mac crowd in relation to search is the lack of search utilities and tools for the Mac environment, although the Google Toolbar is available to Mac users, if they don’t want to use Spotlight.
In order to combat this lack of a search-based bells and whistles utility, one Mac user has developed Inquisitor 1.0, a Safari-based tool that essentially works like an auto complete function, or as the developer says
…a novel search extension for Apple’s Safari web browser that adds live, predictive search features to the standard web search field in Safari. As you type, Inquisitor offers suggestions to complete your query based on your own personal search history as well as the search history of every Google user
Taking the search history of every Google user is an interesting attribute of the utility, but is it useful? The answer is yes if you need suggestions to assist you while you search, if not, you may decide to pass this one by.
An example given on the developer’s blog entry gives an idea of how Inquisitor works:
if you were to type “amer” into the search field, Inquisitor will provide the suggestions “american idol”, “american airlines”, “american express”, etc., as these are the most probable completions to your input, as based on the search history of others.
The Inquisitor download is free (although the developer is taking donations) to those that want it. If you are an inexperienced searcher, then this free utility will probably be a great deal of help to you.
Hat-tip to Gary Price and the SearchEngineWatch blog.
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest search news.