[robtoo]

I think the only use for the search box now is to give people easy access to multiple (or a secondary) search engine. Sure, it's ugly, but it does give users a clear and simple way to search wikipedia for "widgets".

Chrome, on the other hand, only exposes non-Google search engines through the search engine keyword thingy, which means a user has to actually type "en.wikipedia.org widgets" into the omnibox. Sure, tab-completion will do half the work, but the user still has to remember to start typing "en." rather than, say, "wikipedia".

I know that Chrome (and, indeed, Firefox) allow you to edit those search engine keywords, but that is power-user territory, and power-users can edit their Firefox UI as well. http://i.imgur.com/mS5Ot.png

[Lazare]

Minor quibble, but Chrome makes it pretty easy to change your default search engine to anything you want, including non-Google search engines. It's not that you need to use a keyword to search a non-Google search engine, it's that you need to use a keyword to search a non-default search engine. :)

[robtoo]

Also, the UI in Firefox for changing the address bar search engine is awful -- about:config, click through the warning, then find and edit keyword.URL (which is in a different format to everything else)