Comment follow-up: Hyperwords lets you execute searches with a click

by Erez Zukerman on May 11, 2010 at 09:00 AM

When I wrote about Click Cutter, commenter Wayne pointed me in the direction of the Firefox add-on Hyperwords.

I decided to check it out, and I found a powerful Firefox add-on for quickly performing all sorts of searches (and other operations) on the current selection.

You select some text, and a blue dot appears next to it. Once you hover over the dot, a context menu comes up. You can also invoke this menu with a keystroke, or it's available as a submenu on the normal right-click context menu (which is far too busy anyway).

One of its best functions, at least for me, is the ability to quickly copy the selected text along with its source URL. It can also format this as a citation.

Since it offers so many options, its configuration dialog lets you quickly disable any single option or a whole submenu (like I did with the "Shopping" submenu).

You can also add custom operations, such as specifying other search engines. Search results open in an "overlay" window (a la CoolPreviews), but I could not find a way to move this window or reduce its size.

Hyperwords has been around for a while now, and they're up to version 6.01 now. The downside (compared to Click Cutter) is that it's Firefox only, so you don't get a system-wide option to quickly invoke searches. Still, it's quite polished. You can watch their video after the jump.