Mycroft project

The Mycroft project provides a collection of search plugins for Mozilla-based web browsers. The open source project is hosted on Mozdev.org and has been in existence since 2000. The project is named after Mycroft Holmes, the fictional older, smarter, and less ambitious brother of Sherlock Holmes, as a reference to Mycroft being based on Apple Computer's Sherlock search technology.

Browser compatibility

Search plugins on Mycroft are compatible with the following:

• Mozilla Firefox
• Mozilla Application Suite
• Netscape 7
• Internet Explorer 7
• Google Chrome
• Beonex Communicator^[1]

A search plug-in provides the ability to access a search engine (or other websites with a search feature, e.g. Wikipedia) from a web browser, without having to go to its website first.

Technically, a search plug-in is a small text file that 'tells' a computer what information to send to a search engine and how the results are to be retrieved.

Browser independent search

Search plugins on Mycroft can also be used through different user interfaces, bypassing the browser. One example is the free linux software Gnome-do.

See also

• Search engine

References

1. ^ Krause, Ralph (1 March 2002). "Browser Comparison". Linux Journal. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/5413?page=0,1. Retrieved 29 January 2011. 

External links

• The Mycroft Project at mozdev.org