Google Live (Greasemonkey Script)

August 22, 2005 2:09 PM

Google Live Search
A Greasemonkey Script that enables you to watch your google results come in live, as you type the search terms. Mesmerizing, time-wasting, and possibly useful.
Greasemonkey and Firefox required.
posted by Edible Energy (32 comments total)

Pardon my ignorance, but does this mean if you want to find "armadillo" you first get all the letter "A's, then "arms", "Amateur Radio Military Appreciation Day", and so on?
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 2:17 PM on August 22, 2005

That was cool for 30 seconds.
posted by Mach5 at 2:20 PM on August 22, 2005

Google already does this.
posted by danb at 2:26 PM on August 22, 2005

and does it better... but just think of all the 'best of the web' you may discover while typing though... American Rock Mechanics Association anyone?
posted by fatbaq at 2:28 PM on August 22, 2005

Pardon my ignorance, but does this mean if you want to find "armadillo" you first get all the letter "A's, then "arms", "Amateur Radio Military Appreciation Day", and so on?
It doesn't query every millisecond, it's delayed a little.
So if you type one letter at a time really slow you'll get that result.

Google already does this.
No... it doesn't. Autocomplete doesn't give you the results. it gives you popular suggestions and tells you how many results you would get.
posted by Edible Energy at 2:38 PM on August 22, 2005

Firstly a quick warning: Don't click on the link to Google Suggest if you've installed the script - your browser will go into a horrible loop.

and does it better...

I disagree. It's functionality is slightly different because all Suggest does (apart from suggest terms) is tell you how many results you'll get where as the script actually shows the results which is rather more useful I think.

Having said that this is one of those many scripts that's useful sometimes but bloody irritating the rest of the time. I think I'll hold on to it but have it disabled until I need it. Maybe the writer of the script will consider implementing a keyboard shortcut or link to easily switch this thing on and off.
posted by dodgygeezer at 2:41 PM on August 22, 2005

Kinda like going out to the mailbox for junk mail in your Hummer?
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 2:49 PM on August 22, 2005

Does this work for Mac OS X? I downloaded Greasemonkey, and then the script, but I don't know what to do next. Or, it doesn't work....
posted by ParisParamus at 2:52 PM on August 22, 2005

same here. Windows XP and Firefox doesn't do a thing.
posted by wheelieman at 3:02 PM on August 22, 2005

once you have greasemonkey installed, go to the page with the script, go to Tools, Install User Script. Then, if (when) you want to disable it, go to Tools, Manage User Scripts click the script and deselect the Enable checkbox.
posted by Edible Energy at 3:05 PM on August 22, 2005

Yeah, since Goog already has this feature, whoopdeedoo.
posted by angry modem at 3:08 PM on August 22, 2005

Pretty cool, thanks. I find this much more useful than Google Suggest.

(btw, dodgygeezer wasn't kidding about the infinite loop)
posted by blendor at 3:13 PM on August 22, 2005

Oh and to fix the google suggest thing, just go to manage user scripts and put http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en
in the "excluded pages" box.
posted by Edible Energy at 3:18 PM on August 22, 2005

Thanks for the tech support.
posted by ParisParamus at 3:29 PM on August 22, 2005

Well, thanks for introducing me to greasemonkey. As for the mod... it's... cute.
posted by Citizen Premier at 3:52 PM on August 22, 2005

Whoa, at my personal google portal page with greasemonkey enabled, this locked up firefox and windows xp for me (and I've got a 3Ghz chip and 1.5Gb of RAM installed).

Nuts.
posted by mathowie at 4:06 PM on August 22, 2005

Yeah, infinite loop here. I'm not sure what this does anyway. Why would you want the google to search for stuff as you are typing it in? Isn't this kinda like GoogleGuessing what your going to write?

It reminds me of those people that answers the question on the game show before the host finishes the answer.
posted by Mroz at 4:26 PM on August 22, 2005

I mean... "It reminds me of those people that answer the question on the game show before the host finishes asking it."

or

"It reminds me of those people that question the answer on Jeopardy before the host finishes asking the answer."
posted by Mroz at 4:30 PM on August 22, 2005

Greasemonkey, while very cool, has a good chance of ruining Firefox's rep as a secure browser. The potential for abuse in these scripts is unbelievably huge. It also has a good chance of ruining Firefox's rep for stability, as we see more and more hack scripts being created.
posted by dvdgee at 4:52 PM on August 22, 2005

dvdgee, how exactly does Greasemonkey make firefox "unsecure?" It simply allows a customized form of web-browsing.
posted by Citizen Premier at 5:10 PM on August 22, 2005

I guess you missed the major security problem last month that could expose local files to any random web site.
posted by smackfu at 5:32 PM on August 22, 2005

Citizen, Grease Monkey scripts can access anything about the web page your viewing, and so they can sniff anything from it. In theory, it would not be difficult to write a script that sniffs credit card numbers or passwords and sends them back to the script's creator.

More to the point, Mark Pilgrim demonstrated last month that GreaseMonkey was vulnerable to an attack that exposed the entire contents of your harddrive, even while installed scripts may contain nothing malicious.

In other words, running a Greasemonkey script on a site can expose the contents of every file on your local hard drive to that site. Running a Greasemonkey script with "@include *" (which, BTW, is the default if no parameter is specified) can expose the contents of every file on your local hard drive to every site you visit. And, because GM_xmlhttpRequest can use POST as well as GET, an attacker can quietly send this information anywhere in the world.

(This hole has since been patched — but it's just an example of the types of vulnerability that GreaseMonkey may open up. I love GreaseMonkey, but — as with anything else — be careful.)
posted by rafter at 5:37 PM on August 22, 2005

I prefer both CustomizeGoogle and GooglePreview. The former uses Google suggest, but it also provides links to alternate search engines (for the same search). The latter gives you a small preview picture of the sites linked in Google.

As cool as Greasemonkey is, I have yet to find any scripts that I use on a regular basis.
posted by purephase at 5:57 PM on August 22, 2005

I've never tried GreaseMonkey, but this Google Suggest thing is a cool little toy.

But, I'm really sad to see (by typing "sim") that "simple life" has almost four times as many results as "sims 2".

I'm almost tempted to try that search and see if I come up with a bunch of Quaker or Zen type websites, but I know I won't. *shudder*

on preview: thanks for those, purephase
posted by BoringPostcards at 6:00 PM on August 22, 2005

Well, thank you, rafter. I guess I have to admit I'm a bit internet illiterate.
posted by Citizen Premier at 7:44 PM on August 22, 2005

"No... it doesn't. Autocomplete doesn't give you the results. it gives you popular suggestions and tells you how many results you would get."

Okay, let me rephrase: Google already does something better, with less installation, no infinite loops, and more usefulness.
posted by danb at 8:05 PM on August 22, 2005

GreaseMonkey can also rewrite Google's stealth redirects.
posted by George_Spiggott at 8:42 PM on August 22, 2005

I like this script, and I love greasemonkey, but that said, I do keep it turned off by default - anytime I'm on a site I have a script installed for (like this one for ad-removal, to view deleted threads, etc.), I just click the little monkey at the bottom of the screen, hit F5 to refresh, and it's gravy. Afterwards, I just spank the monkey off again. Wait, I mean... Anyway, that's easier than enabling/disabling one script at a time.
posted by hypersloth at 8:48 PM on August 22, 2005

As cool as Greasemonkey is, I have yet to find any scripts that I use on a regular basis.

What, none of these take your fancy? I use the Metafilter deleted posts script myself.
posted by drill_here_fore_seismics at 2:31 AM on August 23, 2005

If you like it, a Safari plugin called Inquisitor has been around for a while that does the same thing, only a little neater - it just modifies the standard search box in the top left of the window so queries appear on a little popup as you type. It can actually be pretty useful for helping to think of good search terms.
posted by silence at 2:40 AM on August 23, 2005

drill_here_fore_seismics writes "What, none of these take your fancy? I use the Metafilter deleted posts script myself."


Not really. I much prefer MetaFilthy. Admittedly, it does not do what some of the Greasemonkey scripts claim, but I find it far more useful. Thanks for the link. I might try out the Mefiquote script.
posted by purephase at 5:45 AM on August 23, 2005

drill_here_fore_seismics: "What, none of these take your fancy? I use the Metafilter deleted posts script myself."

Oh, I should point out that the MeFi deleted posts script was slightly broken until this morning. It erroneously showed a deleted post after every post with only a single comment. It's fixed now.
posted by Plutor at 7:29 AM on August 23, 2005