San Francisco — If you fancy using Firefox browser but also love Microsoft’s Live Search, then you will be happy to know that Microsoft is dressing itself up to combat the ‘browser wars’ with the release of a new add-on for rival Mozilla’s open-source Firefox browser. The update would enable to enjoy the optimized utilization of Microsoft Live Search from directly within Firefox.
“We are happy to inform that we have officially incorporated Live Search into Firefox by popular demand,” wrote Beatrice Oltean, Live Search Program Manager, and Debapriya Ray, Live Search Senior Product Manager, in a blog post, last week.
The new auto-suggest add-on, which places a small search box in the upper right corner of the Firefox browser, performs exactly that it says on the tin, helping to auto-complete search queries in the browser as users starts typing search queries. Enter the name Bruce, for example, and the auto-suggest will instantly pull down a list of famous Bruces you may be searching for.
“The list of suggestions refreshes as you continue typing or when you change the query,” says a post on the Live Search Blog. “You can click the suggestion that best matches what you were searching for to speed you to your results.”
The concept is nothing revolutionary, but Microsoft’s eagerness to work with its principal competitor shows it is serious about making headway in the search engine battle.
The company also says the add-on serves as a neat technical demonstration of its new Live Search API.
Version 2.0 of Microsoft’s Live Search API also supports multiple protocols including JSON, XML and Soap, as part of a project called Silk Road, whereas Google’s search API supports only Ajax.
Apart from losing ground to rival browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari, Microsoft is struggling to secure more of the search market, a lucrative business thanks to search advertising and text adverts placed adjacent to a user’s search results.
“This release, while relatively small in scope, takes advantage of the work we have done as part of our Live Search API 2 which enables the richest and most flexible search API offered by any major search provider,” says Alessandro Catorcini, lead program manager.