Monocle: Spotlight-like Search For the Web

Posted by on 03/09/07 in Applications, Internet, Utilities 

In this information-driven society, it seems like every day we try to discover new ways to access information just a bit more quickly and easily than the day before. Apple has done a great job fulfilling our needs in this space by introducing Spotlight and making powerful search frameworks available to developers. Even then, we often find ourselves wanting more. Well, today I bring you Monocle, a tool for lightning-fast web searches.

Monocle user interface

Monocle is a slick web search interface with a few really cool features. First, it sits in your menu bar and is accessible at all times from any location with a simple customizable keystroke. Second, it incorporates “callwords,” or quick keyword searches similar to those available in Firefox. This means, for example, you could search the Internet Movie Database for an entry on Martin Scorsese just by calling up Monocle and typing “imdb martin scorsese” in the search field and hitting Return. Monocle’s search engine list is completely customizable, so you can add any search you want along with its own callword.

Until Apple decides to incorporate web searching into Spotlight, Monocle is a very good solution for a system-wide web search at your fingertips. Download it for free right here.

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8 Responses to “Monocle: Spotlight-like Search For the Web”

  1. Yohannes Wijaya on March 9th, 2007 4:42 pm

    quicksilver gets the same job done and even more. monocle will have a hard time getting into my applist unless they come up with unique features that qs does not have.

  2. alej744 on March 9th, 2007 6:00 pm

    Bleh, no. Inquisitor is better.

  3. Ken on March 9th, 2007 7:39 pm

    Butler also does the same…

  4. Nick Cotton on March 9th, 2007 8:18 pm

    I’ve been using Inquisitor since it went freeware, I think it does pretty well. This looks like more menubar clutter to me.

  5. Taylor on March 9th, 2007 8:43 pm

    This is a great alternative for those looking to avoid QS.
    I have had trouble adding search engines… I have toyed with the POST and GET options, but still can’t get thepiratebay to work. If anyone has, let me know.

  6. Monocle, búsquedas en web desde el escritorio on March 12th, 2007 7:42 am

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  8. ppi claim back on May 19th, 2011 4:16 am

    I get a problem subscribing to your RSS Feed… It states feed is activated, nonetheless I never receive updates in my feed reader… Any Ideas?

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