I really like the Firefox feature that lets me select some text and then (right-click) search in Google for the text. I find myself mistakenly trying it in all my applications - email, instant message chats, documentation, etc. I finally had to find some way of getting this functionality everywhere.

I am currently trying out Transfz. While not exactly the same as what Firefox does, it’s close enough until I find something better. I bind a hotkey (in my case I used ALT+2). Then, I just select text anywhere and hit the hotkey. My browser of choice is launched with a Google search on the highlighted text.

I have found a bug or two. For example, while writing this blog post, I double clicked a work - there by highlighting it. Transfz did not recognize this method of selecting text and when I hit my hotkey, I got results from my previous search. I can live with that … for now.

I should point out, Transfz does a whole lot more. It’s extensions and plug-ins add a lot of interesting features. I just wanted Google search.
If you know of a better solution - sorry, I’m a Windows user at the moment - post a comment.

Related tangests ...   Guest blogger on "I don't have a poor attention span ! I'm multitasking"   Making a multi-PC environment more productive   The battle of the media devices

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