Q: What is the Omnibox in Google Chrome?

Conext

• Google Chrome web browser (not yet fully supported at MIT)

Answer

What Google calls the "Omnibox" in Chrome is the big text entry box in the main toolbar at the top of every Chrome browser window. It's where normal browsers might have a location box and a search box. Chrome allows you to type in both web locations and search terms into the box, and will try to intelligently discern whether you are trying to run a web search (or other configured search if you use special keywords) or go directly to a web site.

Of note is that Google Chrome has a list of configured, special third party searches triggered by keywords. For example, if you type amazon.com and hit space you'll see the label Search amazon.com: appear in the Omnibox, and anything you enter afterwords will be used to search directly using Amazon's site search. Third party web sites can add themselves to your list of custom searches (usually the trigger is the web site domain name) but you can also add custom searches manually via "Wrench Menu"> Preferences> Basics-> Searches.

See also

• Google: Using the address bar (omnibox)
• Set up Request Tracker quick search from Google Chrome omnibox