Chrome – Tab + Enter No Longer Taking to First Google Search Result

google-chromegoogle-searchkeyboard shortcuts

As the title says; I used to be able to press Tab+Enter in Chrome to take me to the first search result. This now only works if I am not signed in to my Google account. When signed in, I can't do it. It works fine (signed in and not) on Firefox.

I believe this may have stopped working since a system update.

I'm using:

  • Ubuntu 12.10
  • Chrome 23.0.1271.64

Is this to do with a setting within Google, or is it something within Chrome? Because it works in Firefox, it suggests it is a Chrome problem. I tried disabling all extensions, but no joy.

Best Answer

These no longer work as Google have removed this feature, so you can't just turn it out like you used to be able to. The way you used to be able to do this was through:

Google Search > Settings > Search Settings > Google Instant Prediction > On

but it no longer works. I was so sad to see this feature go that I wrote a hack to re-engineer it. So far it only works with Google Chrome, but can be adapted to work with all the others:

  1. Install Chrome extension ShortKeys.
  2. Click on the ShortKeys menu and select "Options" enter image description here
  3. Click on "Add" and fill in the following fields:

Keyboard Shortcut: tab

Behavior: Run JavaScript

Label as: Result Picker

  1. Paste the following JavaScript into the JavaScript code to run: 

    document.selectedResultId=0

function selectResult(newId){
    els = document.querySelectorAll("div.r h3")
    if(newId < 0 || newId >= els.length)
        return  //Could modify for page nav...?
    rp = document.getElementById("result-pointer")
    if(rp != null){
        rp.remove()
    }
    document.selectedResultId=newId
    el = els[newId]
    lnk = el.parentElement
    el.innerHTML = "<div id=\"result-pointer\" style=\"position:absolute;left:-15px;\">&gt;</div>" + el.innerHTML
    lnk.focus()
}
document.onkeyup=function(event){
    if(event.keyCode==38)
        selectResult(document.selectedResultId-1)
    if(event.keyCode==40)
        selectResult(document.selectedResultId+1)
    if(event.keyCode==13){
      var el = document.querySelectorAll("div.r h3")[document.selectedResultId]
      var lnk = el.parentElement
      var url = lnk.href
      if(event.ctrlKey){
        var win = window.open(url,"_blank")
        win.blur()
        window.open().close()
      }
      else{
        document.location = url
      }
    }
}
selectResult(0)
    1. Configure the Activation Settings:

Active while in form fields (Checked)

Websites (Only specific sites)

URLS (one per line): *www.google.*

This is what the Options page should look like

ShortKeys Options Page

  1. Click Save and then close your browser.

Instructions:

  • When you restart you should see a little blue (or black) ">" appear by search results when you hit tab.

  • The up/down arrow keys make it cycle through the results.

  • Hitting "Enter" will navigate to the highlighted result.

  • Hitting "Ctrl+Enter" to open the result in a new tab.

Happy Searching!

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