If you're keen on the as-you-type search results you get from Google Instant, you'll really like Instant integrated with Chrome's omnibox. Just launch your beta/dev/canary release, type about:labs, enable Instant, restart Chrome, and prepare for some interesting browsing. More »

With all the talk about Google‘s new “instant search” functionality it was only a matter of time until it was made available in the Chrome browser. Recent versions of the developer version of Google Chrome, and the Chrome Canary builds, are already compatible with Google Instant Search.

And with compatible we do not mean that users can open a Google Search page and search there. No, the instant search functionality has been integrated into the browser’s omnibar.

It is however not activated by default, and users need to start Chrome with the parameter --enable-match-preview to enable Instant Search in the Omnibar.

Once started with the parameter, the browser will automatically display search results for characters that are entered into the address bar of the browser. The behavior is different from that on Google’s search page though, as results can be divided into two groups.

google chrome instant search

The first result group is the typical Google search result listing, the second a matching page for the search term. Entering gh for instance in the address bar will load ghacks directly, while g will load the Google homepage. This may be linked to bookmarks in the browser.

There is obviously a problem with that, especially for users who type moderately. It could mean that they accidentally open a lot of pages while typing.

The search page looks different though, as the developers have decided to add the blank tab page information on top of the search results. A click with the mouse on the page that has been loaded removes those information immediately, while pressing return loads the page again without the information on top.

The developers should consider adding configuration options to the new search option, for instance an option to increase the time it takes before search results are displayed.