SearchAll for Windows

We'll admit that we were very intrigued by this free Firefox add-on, which promises a way to see and compare results from multiple search engines. But after we put it to the test, we found some of its features vague and its user interface awkward to navigate.

Right off the bat, we found several issues with SearchAll's user interface. A single search field and a single button are introduced in a completely new toolbar that seemed to take up more space than it needed. A three-panel display is used to show search results, but there wasn't enough user guidance. We found the drop-down menus for selecting search engines awkward to access, and we found them by accident after we moved our mouse over the three menu tabs. We entered a keyword in the search field and clicked the SearchAll button. Our search results appeared in each of the three panels under the Original tab. The other two tabs--Formatted and Mapping--were unclear in their purpose. Both were unable to pull up results based on our keyword search, and without any kind of help feature, we were unable to get them to work at all.

Even though we liked the three-panel approach for side-by-side research and comparison shopping, we just couldn't let go of the other issues we had with SearchAll. We suggest you wait until the navigation improves or some user guidance is provided.