Internet Explorer finally gets "As you type" search

Internet explorer has been my default browser for a long time. I like it better than FireFox (OMG!) and for the work I do and the websites that I visit - it works best. Only occasionally do I have to whip out FireFox to visit a "non-compliant" web-page.

Though there has been one feature that I always missed in Internet Explorer that I had grown to love in FireFox: the "as you type" search feature. In FireFox, whenever you hit CTRL+F, it would open up the find toolbar at the bottom and as you typed a word into the find box, the word would get highlighted in the browser. If there was more than one match - then you could view them via the provided buttons.

 Firefox's search bar

In Internet Explorer (even the most recent version IE 7), when you hit CTRL+F, you get the good old find dialog that one finds in all the staple desktop applications like Notepad, etc.

Internet Explorer's native Find dialog

In this day and age and after so many years of FireFox's goodness being out there - you would have thought that Microsoft would have added this type of a search in its Internet browser. No such luck! Go Figure! Though the find as you search was available via a IE add-in called "findasyoutype" written by Sven Groot.

Well, today I upgraded to the Google Toolbar version 5 beta for Internet Explorer. I hit CTRL+F and what do you know - no crappy old Microsoft Find dialog, but an actual Find As You Type toolbar pops up at the bottom.

 Google's Find toolbar for IE 

The find as you type toolbar pops up when you press CTRL+F, or click on the Find button on the Google Toolbar. In addition the Find button's drop down lists all the words that were used to perform a Google Search. (Google Toolbar Word Find)

Google just gave me another extremely important reason to stay with their toolbar instead of using the Microsoft search toolbar.

Try the new: Google Toolbar 5 beta for IE.

All features: http://toolbar.google.com/T5/intl/en/features.html

The only feature that I don't like right now is the redesigned way in which one adds bookmarks to the Google Toolbar. Previously, it used be a normal dialog. Now its a balloon that is not rendered correctly and feels very clunky. Hope it gets a make-over or returns to the original style by the time the final version is released.

Save Bookmark to Google Toolbar - balloon.