Smarter browsing

Under duress I recently switched my default browser not only to Firefox but to the latest version, 3. Rest in peace IE6. Sniff. Talk about who moved my cheese! Getting used to tabs was hard enough and then there were the teething problems with printing, downloading, access to secure stuff on our network … however, it does have a logo with a lot of orange on it so will persevere.

Along similar lines to previous ramblings about people no longer having to remember things in their own heads because we’re becoming reliant on technology, going to a previously visited site in FF3 requires not much thought any more either. Anything that you type into the address bar that forms any part of a URL OR the title of a page that you’ve visited before, and not just the beginning of it, shows a list of all the sites you’ve visited so you can pick from the list.

So no need to remember URLs any more, just type a word and bingo! I think IE6 (& earlier versions of FF) did something similar but it might’ve been based on the start of the URL.

Don’t you think this makes it very tricky if you happen to be using another browser or another machine? You need to remember the sites you frequently use because short of searching for them every time or using a finger print or some other identifier that facilitates travelling favourites you’re stuck!