Google Advanced Search

Introduction

Google Search is the go-to platform for finding information online. However, most users barely scratch the surface of its capabilities. Google's advanced search functions enable users to conduct more precise, targeted searches that yield more relevant results. This blog post aims to uncover the various techniques that constitute Google's advanced search features.

Basic Search Tips

Before diving into advanced methods, let's cover some basic but invaluable search tips:

• Quotation Marks: Use quotation marks to search for an exact phrase. E.g., "climate change statistics."
• Minus Sign: Use a minus sign to exclude words. E.g., jaguar -car.
• Site Search: Use site: to search within a specific website. E.g., site:wikipedia.org World War 2.

Advanced Search Operators

1. OR Operator

Use OR to search for web pages that may have just one of several words.

Example: stocks OR bonds OR securities

2. Intitle

Search for terms specifically in the title of a webpage.

Example: intitle:gardening tips

3. Inurl

Find web pages where your specified word appears in the URL.

Example: inurl:blog

4. Filetype

Search for files of a particular type.

Example: filetype:pdf "machine learning"

5. Related

Find websites related to a specific site.

Example: related:nytimes.com

Wildcard and Date Ranges

• Wildcard: The asterisk (*) serves as a wildcard that can match any word or phrase.

Example: "The best * is yet to come"

• Date Ranges: Use .. between dates to search for information published in a certain time period.

Example: "Olympics 2016..2020"

Utilizing Google Advanced Search Form

For users who are not comfortable using search operators, Google offers an Advanced Search form. Here you can fill in various fields like language, region, and file type to get a more refined search.

Firefox Browser Tab Activity Tracker Add-on

The following extension tracks browser tab activity - away/back. The time you leave a browser tab (change the active browser tab) and the time you returned are stored. The total time spent on the tab (page) and the time spent away are displayed to check efficiency. The data will be reset as soon as the page is refreshed.

Create a folder named tab_change and add the following manifest.json and tab_change.js files to this folder.
Go to about:debugging in Firefox and click Load Temporary Add-on and load the manifest.json file. Then visit the webpages as you normally do. The times/durations of tab changes you make will be appended to the end of the page along with the total time spent on the particular page.

Firefox Yahoo Finance Data Add-on

The following extension adds data to the Yahoo Finance Quote Page - percentage changes for Day's and 52 Week Highs and Lows will be added. The percentage changes are of that of the current price compared to the above mentioned Lows and Highs. The page needs to be refreshed to update the data.

Create a folder named yahoo_finance_data and add the following manifest.json and yahoo_finance_data.js files to this folder.

Go to about:debugging in Firefox and click Load Temporary Add-on and load the manifest.json file. Then visit Yahoo Finance Quote for a Symbol and the additional data will be displayed as shown below.

Firefox Instagram HashTag Search Add-on

The following extension adds a menu item to the right-click menu that enable you to search for the selected text. The words in the selected text is checked against a list of stop words. Subsequently, a configurable maximum number of limit words are chosen for Instagram hashtag search.

Create a folder named search_instagram and add the following manifest.json and search_instagram.js files to this folder.

Go to about:debugging in Firefox and click Load Temporary Add-on and load the manifest.json file. Then right-click on the selected text on a webpage to do a hashtag search on Instagram.

MacOS Command Line Audio File Player (afplay)

The command afplay in MacOS lets you play audio files in command line. Simply passing the file name to the command plays the entire audio file:

afplay song.mp3

You can check the available command line options to the command by looking at the man page (man afplay) or by entering the command only without any parameters (afplay). It is possible to change the volume, play duration, quality, etc.

Suppose you want to play an audio file with specified interval, say 10 seconds:

while true; do afplay song.mp3; sleep 10; done

Suppose you want to play an audio file at Random intervals:

while true; do afplay song.mp3; sleep $RANDOM; done

Here, $RANDOM is a uniform random number generator in the range 0 to  32767.

Firefox Advanced Youtube Search Add-on - Sort Criteria

The following extension adds a menu item to the right-click menu that enables you to search for the selected text with specified sort criteria - Relevance, Upload Date, View Count, Rating.

Create a folder named search_youtube_sort and add the following manifest.json and search_youtube_sort.js files to this folder.

Go to about:debugging in Firefox and click Load Temporary Add-on and load the manifest.json file. Then right-click on the selected text on a webpage and choose the sort criteria to search in Youtube.

Firefox Youtube Search Add-on

The following extension adds a menu item to the right-click menu that enabled you to search for the selected text.

Create a folder named search_youtube and add the following manifest.json and search_youtube.js files to this folder.

Go to about:debugging in Firefox and click Load Temporary Add-on and load the manifest.json file. Then right-click on the selected text on a webpage to search in Youtube.