Whats the point of Opera displaying specific site when typed in browser line

[Janochka]

Hi,
I just downloaded opera 9 (am not familier with opera) and i noticed when typing a word with no extension or anything i.e mywidgets into the url bar u get to the actual site typed..same happans to ASCII and also to IDN domains.
What is the point? as the only advantage i see is to the site owner..but alot of disadvantages to opera users..can someone explain the logic behind it?
Thanks!
Janochka

[Brett_Tabke]

You can control it by going to preferences.

alt-p -> advanced -> network > server name completion.

That will control which tlds opera checks and in what order.

It is quite handy - I have used it daily for almost 10 years now...
Same thing as control-enter over a url in IE (which also works in opera)

[Hester]

Firefox does this too. However, I notice a difference sometimes in the site you are taken to. I mean to make an article about this when I get time. Common words like "adobe" will always go to the obvious site, but other words must depend on who paid what to whom. :)

but alot of disadvantages to opera users

I see only advantages.

Don't forget you can also set up keywords in Opera and Firefox, to go straight to sites by just typing in a word you choose. Eg: "456" for the site 456 Berea Street.

[Brett_Tabke]

> but other words must depend on who paid what to whom

show me an example of that. There is nothign nefarious going on here - you are in complete control of the feature.

[navjotpawera]

Typing a word in the address bar and pressing enter (in Opera) would first look for a machine with that name on the local network and then would do another query based on the settings under the preferences (default: prefixing "www", and adding "com" as a suffix)

You can change these preferences
Preferences (alt + p) > Advanced > Network > Server Name Completion

I beleive in FireFox, the default settings are to search for the query using google, in a similar fashion as the "I'm Feeling Lucky" Feature, hence the difference in results

[Hester]

> but other words must depend on who paid what to whom

show me an example of that. There is nothign nefarious going on here - you are in complete control of the feature.

OK. Type "fuji" in Opera and in Firefox. :)