Filed under: Fun, Internet, Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Linux
YubNub: search for anything, anywhere, from any computer

Just about every modern browser has built-in functionality to allow it to integrate multiple search engines, either via a search field or by using abbreviations typed into the address bar. Problem is, if you use multiple computers, or multiple browsers on the same computer, you'll find yourself configuring these little gems over and over. Jonathan Aquino had enough of that, so he came up with YubNub, which he literally built in a day as part of a programming contest. YubNub acts as a front-end for multiple search engines and uses a simple abbreviation system; wp, for example, stands for Wikipedia, so to do a Wikipedia search on, say, Apple, you'd type wp apple into the YubNub search field. Beyond that, YubNub is collaborative; anyone can add a new search directly to the site, and it automatically becomes accessible to all users. For example, in all of two minutes, I defined the abbreviation en to stand for Engadget. Now anyone can type, say, en software, and YubNub will return all Engadget entries that reference software. YubNub will, of course, work with any browser, and developers have already come up with front-ends for most popular platforms and browsers, making the application completely transparent.