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Re:Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users by samsolomon on Thursday October 14, 2021 @01:19PM (#28867140)
This is is an unpopular opinion on a place like Hacker News, but it is correct.

Users want access to the information they are looking for as quickly and frictionlessly as possible—the omni bar does just that.

Re:Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users by megous on Thursday October 14, 2021 @09:16PM (#28872690)
ctrl+k and I know I'll be searching in a web search engine ctrl+l and I know I'll be opening an URL and if the domain doesn't exist it will fail

I can't really count anymore how often omnibar just searched for some local domain I tried to type in, in a search engine, instead of just telling me that domain doesn't exist because I made a typo or whatever.

Having to type https:// in front of every URL is also not very pleasant, especially on mobile phones.

Also browsers assuming that anything outside of PSL is to be searched in a search engine right away instead of resolved as a domain, is another annoyance for this user. At least the browser could be less stupid and consider local search domains part of PSL, but no.

So whether omnibar is more of a hindrance than help depends on the user/use case.

I also kinda like the distinction that ctrl+l is only searching locally in bookmarks/history and ctrl+k is public search.