Battle of the Browser Bars

At the incessant prompting by an Ask Jeeves employee who shall remain nameless, I installed the Ask Jeeves Internet Explorer toolbar this evening. I decided to keep it next to my long-standing Google toolbar so I could contrast and compare. I use the Google toolbar probably something like once for every 2 minutes I spend using Internet Explorer. Yes, that often. Google is as much a part of my life as are the Yellow Pages or 411.

But I digress. The toolbars are fairly similar in their functionality but with a few key differences; ones in particular that matter to a power user:

• I frequently use tab or ctrl+tab to move from the IE location bar to the Google search box. Ask’s toolbar doesn’t accept that method of focus requiring me to use the mouse; Winner: Google
• Google results pages come up more quickly than Jeeves and there is less vertical space required by the Google method of adveritising meaning I don’t have to look as far down; Winner: Google
• Jeeves has built in buttons for local weather (after setting my zip code) that takes me straight to the weather.com page for my area – sweet! Winner: Jeeves
• Jeeves has a “Search Market” feature that gives you instant drop down stock quotes for up to 5 stocks. I religiously check about three tickers daily so this is a neat feature for me; Winner: Jeeves
• The Jeeves search box auto-expands to fill the width of the browser which makes moving my mouse from the search field to the button I want to click more work. Additionally, the buttons don’t support tab-key activation Winner: Google
• Jeeves sends you to search results inside of a frame that includes their search box up top. This is wack. I have the toolbar installed! Do I need 2 search boxes? I guess I can’t get enough of the butler; Winner: Google
• Although Jeeves has a button to “Map” a search entry, entering a full address and hitting enter does not offer me a “Map this address” option like Google unless I click the Map button. The algorithm for identifying an address exists but Jeeves fails to include it in the regular engine? Winner: Google
• Jeeves has another button allowing you to search the dictionary for your search entry. It’s similar to the way Google links your search term to a definition but since Jeeves also requires use of the mouse… Winner: Tie
• Why stop with dictionary when thesaurus and translation could be added? In my quest to better learn Spanish, I access Babelfish constantly. Access into Verbix or Babelfish would make sense here; Winner: Neither
• Search engines aren’t really about searching, they’re about finding. Therefore sensing what I am looking for and returning me real answers is key to saving me time. Try searching for “pizza 94107″ on Jeeves versus Google (interestingly, try the search terms reversed); Winner: Google

Although Jeeves has some key wins, unless their search results are consistently more accurate than Google, I don’t see myself making a permanent change. I’m going to give it a fair shot but the lack of keyboard focus for the search box (keep in mind that I launch my IE with a keyboard shortcut of ctrl+alt+i) is going to be a dealbreaker I fear. Until next week, the Butler will be keeping me in check.