Type-ahead-find

Find text or links as you type
What is Type-ahead-find?
'Type-ahead-find' is a powerful Chrome extension designed to drastically improve your browsing experience by facilitating faster webpage searching. As you start typing or pressing '/', it begins a text search, while pressing ' ' enables searching only links. It offers changing the 'direct search state' option for default search policy. You can switch between matches using keys and can initiate a toggle matching mode with F4 once the search is active. Also, there's an option to blacklist sites with their own shortcuts. Perfect for those looking for swift, efficient browsing, but note it cannot search within iframes or text in adjacent HTML nodes, and might misbehave if the page already sets JavaScript keybindings.

Extension stats

Users: 10,000+
Rating: 4.48 (374)
Version: 0.4.5 (Last updated: 2021-11-23)
Creation date: 2014-11-28
Risk impact: Low risk impact
Risk likelihood: Low risk likelihood
Manifest version: 2
Permissions:
  • storage
Size: 17.46K

Other platforms

Not available on Firefox
Not available on Edge
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Extension summary

Type-ahead-find [1] is an accessibility feature to search links and text faster on a webpage. How to use it:

  • Start writing (or press /) to start text search.
  • Press ' to search only links.
  • Change option "direct search state" to set the default search policy (text, links or disabled).
  • Use (Shift+)F3 or (Shift+)Control+G or Alt+N/P to switch between matches.
  • Use F4 to toggle matching mode (text/links) once the search is active.
  • Blacklist sites that set up their own shortcuts.
  • The search shows first matches in current viewport.

Limitations:

  • It cannot search inside iframes.
  • It does not search text in adjacent HTML nodes (i.e. "hello" won't be found in HTML Hello)
  • If the page already sets Javascript keybidings, the extension may misbehave. The best solution is to blacklist the site in the options page and disable the extension for this particular website.

User reviews

These summaries are automatically generated weekly using AI based on recent user reviews. Chrome Web Store does not verify user reviews, so some user reviews may be inaccurate, spammy, or outdated.
Pros
  • Best keyboard navigation extension available.
  • Improves navigation speed and productivity significantly.
  • Works perfectly for many users.
  • Long-term users appreciate its consistency.
  • Essential tool for fresh installations.
Cons
  • Not working in current Chrome versions.
  • Difficult to use with contextual searches.
  • Occasionally fails to scroll to matches.
  • Not supported in source code view.
  • Request for support in Chinese search.
Most mentioned
  • Works well for navigation.
  • Hasn't been updated since 2014 but still functions well.
  • Users express gratitude for its impact on productivity.
Recent reviews
Find button did absolutely nothing
by Chris Vydas, 2024-11-04

Finally! I was looking for something like this. I was used to use the 'type to navigate' extension on Safari. It improves my navigation speed and productivity a lot.

Excellent extension - works perfectly for me on Edge.
by Steven Zimmerman, 2023-03-31
View all user reviews

Extension safety

Risk impact

Type-ahead-find requires very minimum permissions.

Risk likelihood

Type-ahead-find has earned a fairly good reputation and likely can be trusted.

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