14 DAY TRIAL // Working to satisfy what it referred to as popular demand, the Live Search team has made available an officially supported add-on designed to integrate Live Search with Firefox. The Live Search add-in for the Mozilla open source browser is offered as a free download and was published on the Firefox add-ons repository. Developed by Beatrice Oltean, program manager, Live Search, and Alessandro Catorcini, the lead program manager for Live Search API, the Live Search add-in for Firefox is focused on providing users with a better experience using Microsoft's search engine by providing autosuggestions.
“The Live Search add-in will allow Firefox users to have an officially supported add-in for Live Search in their browser that enables query auto-suggest. The new feature integrates with the Live Search API to provide suggested query keywords, making it easier and faster for searchers to find the information they want and need,” Catorcini stated. “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.”
Oltean revealed that ultimately, the add-on was set to speed up the search experience of Firefox users that opted for Live Search instead of the default Google. Constructing the add-in, Microsoft has turned to the Open Search standard and built the extension via the JSON interface supported by Firefox. Users typing their queries in Firefox's search box will be able to take advantage of autosuggestions returned through the add-on.
“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 add-on is available in the following markets: Australia (AU), Canada (CA), India (IN), Ireland (IE), New Zealand (NZ), Philippines (PH), South Africa (ZA), United Kingdom (UK), and United States (US),” Oltean stated.
The Live Search Add-in for Mozilla Firefox is available for download here.