Microsoft Releases Live Search Firefox Add-on

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 30 Jan 2009

Microsoft, which has recently released IE8 RC1 (Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1), is taking on Mozilla and their very popular browser by releasing an add-on that should bring Firefox and Live search closer together. It seems that Microsoft has seen the potential Firefox presents and is using it to promote their Live.com search engine, which to be honest had to turn to some unconventional means in order to become more popular.

Program Manager with Live Search, Beatrice Oltean and Senior Product Manager Debapriya Ray comment: “The Live Search add-on for Firefox gives you auto-suggestions from Live Search right in the browser while you're typing your query. For example, start to type "Bruce Springsteen" into the Live Search box, and you're shown relevant suggestions. The list of suggestions refreshes as you continue typing or when you change the query. You can click the suggestion that best matches what you were searching for to speed you to your results.”

The catch, as you probably suspected there would be one, is that the Live Search add-on is available in only a few markets: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zeeland, Philippines, South Africa and India.

Lead Program Manager for Live Search, Alessandro Catorcini provides further details: “This release, while relatively small in scope, takes advantage of the work we've done as part of our Live Search API 2.0 which enables the richest and most flexible search API offered by any major search provider. We listened a ton to developers as we built 2.0 and the we think the feature set reflects that - multiple protocol support (in contrast to only AJAX from GOOG), unlimited queries for customer-facing sites and apps, and an awesome array of result presentation options.”

In related browser news, Google has released a security and compatibility update, Chrome 1.0.154.46, while Mozilla has announced further delays for Firefox 3.1 Beta 3.

If you would like to get Live Search, a download location is available here.


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