When Google first released Chrome in 2008, it had a feature that many, including me, loved – the “Omnibar.” The Omnibar is Google’s fancy name for the address bar in Chrome, but, it includes one feature that other web browsers don’t – the ability to search Google directly. In many browsers, you have two bars in the toolbar – the first being the traditional address bar and the second is the search bar, which allows you to not go to Google.com, for example, to search for something. Firefox also has the ability to search Google directly from the address bar. 

One web browser that has lacked this feature is Apple’s Safari, until now. One developer has created an extension for Safari users that allows them to easily search Google directly from the address bar, just like in Chrome. The extension, cleverly dubbed “SafariOmnibar,” is available for download from GitHub here: https://github.com/downloads/rs/SafariOmnibar/Safari%20Omnibar-1.1.pkg. SafariOmnibar will work for Safari 5.0 (Snow Leopard users) and Safari 5.1 (Lion users). 

All you have to do is download the extension, run the package, and restart Safari. If you see that the search bar on the right side of the toolbar in Safari has disappeared, you know that the extension has successfully installed. You should now see just one, giant address bar in Safari. 

Go ahead – you know you want to!