I think there's a difference.

Most desktop apps return structured results in tabular format. Those are much easier to skim because you know what to expect in each field, and you're usually looking at only one column anyways (e.g. the "title" or "filename").

Google results are not tabular (perhaps they should be?) and I find it rather hard to keep track of what I had already skimmed while the display shuffles furiously.

Well, sort of. If I start a search for "go" on my computer, it looks for that text specifically. Google looks for "google maps" -- which is more distracting to me personally.

However there are a lot of people out there that can't touch type and have to reformulate their query multiple times before they get 'acceptable' results. So Google instant actually has a meaningful increase of their iteration time, and thus enables them to find better results faster.

My main gripe with it is that it limits the number of results returned to 10, which I find to be unusable. I have it set to 100 (the current max) and wish it could be much higher so I didn't have to keep hitting 'Next'.

I can see why Google would want to return only 10 results (more ad impressions, less work for their servers) but anyone here actually prefer getting so few results? I've almost never seen anyone else's browser set up to return anything but the default, and have never known whether this is ignorance, acceptance, or conscious choice.

I'm interested in how you know that bing does not have the infrastructure to support it?

It's actually from a year ago. It doesn't automatically search for a predicted query, just uses what you've typed in so far. But you can mouse over the query suggestions to search for them.

That doesn’t answer your question why Microsoft couldn’t handle it but a small project is also no evidence that Microsoft could do it.

I think it removes an important aspect of UI that has until now been so entrenched that we take it completely for granted: pressing 'enter' signifies the completion of input.

In a conversation between humans, it's considered rude to begin responding to someone before they're finished talking. This behavior is more than just an interruption; it ignores the full thought intended by the speaker in favor of an assumption.

Interacting with software is no different; even if the conversational dynamic doesn't directly apply, we still have similar subconscious expectations. I don't want a response until I press enter. Before that, I'm in the process of constructing my search terms as I type them, often revising them, expanding them, and correcting typos.

Besides all of that, Google is now executing several queries for every single query that would have been provided previously. Most users are probably not even going to look at the results until they're done typing, so this is probably a significant waste of bandwidth and CPU cycles that could be put to better use.

http://www.google.com/preferences?hl=en and search for "Google Instant".

I haven't quite made up my mind yet. I don't mind it, but then again most of my searches come from the Chrome address bar.

I do like tab-completion e.g. at a shell prompt for filenames, but that's something I initiate. It's the automatic kind I don't like.

But, every without that, there's a noticeable lag in handling my typing, which is annoying, and I've yet to find a result I wanted before I was done entering all I intended into the search field.

It's an issue with many AJAXy UI items; they are so busy trying to second-guess my every keystroke that my every keystroke becomes a burden to enter.

OTOH, it's a very smart move for G from technical POVs, since their cache hit rate would be much higher as the queries are normalized in greater portion, so that the real impact on their backend is small in comparison (of the overall search volume.)

When my search is exact, I don't use it, and since I search google primarily through chrome or the search bar in firefox, this feature is only visible to me when I actually require it.

I have developed my Googleing technique over a long time. This was a major interruption and for no benefit to me. Maybe if all you do is enter searches that always display the result you are looking for in the top 10, this is something good.

I bet they save a bunch of cpu resources by 'directing' people to the right search queries (which are cached) instead of dealing w/ misspellings and running searches that the user doesn't really want anyway.

a) haven't found any practical benefit to having it b) feel slightly ill-at-ease with the way it affects impression and click counting for adwords.

It's okay; maybe I'll just get used to it, like every Facebook revision, ever.

I think it helps me less than others because as a heavy, technical user, my queries tend to be longer and more unique -- less likely the autocompletes or top-predicted query are what I meant.

One negative for me is that it drops my displayed results to 10, from the 100 I normally prefer. I like to scan several screenfuls of snippets to pick just a few results that are most likely to be best.

The flickering display of interim results is a little distracting -- but not a major problem.

I mostly search from the Firefox search box, so only see it occasionally.

So, I haven't yet turned it off -- still giving it chance to see how it works with more experience.

It's all about whether we want change. Change can be good, but think about how long (if ever) it could take for more time to be saved than time lost getting used to the change in the first place.

Also think about it this way: people have been searching on search engines for over decade in an very uniform way, regardless of the search engine. Search engines aren't that intuitive, even if they try to be. They aren't that user friendly, even if they try to be. But people worked with what they were given, and got quite good at. Now Google wants to break our habits, and a I don't think I want to. Not only because of the time I would lose changing my habits, but because it works just fine.

Another reason why Google Instant does not work for me is since it only works for "browsing" and not "finding". Sometimes people will go to Google to just "browse" a broad topic. They're not necessarily looking for a specific website or detail. So after entering a broad search term, Google Instant helps them narrow their search query. On the other hand, sometimes people will go to Google to "find" a specific topic subject, point, or answer. Therefore they don't want suggested search terms. They have already crafted a detailed search in the heads and are not looking for suggestions. In these cases, Google Instant just acts as a distraction. And that brings me to my problem with Google Instant: I use it for "finding" 90% of the time and only 10% of the time do I use it to "browse". I have a feeling that many tech-savy people here on HN probably have a similar distribution of their time spent on Google Since Google Instant only works for us the 10% of the time, it's hard to justify using it all.

I tried instant search in Firefox. I don't like the way the search box changes position and I don't like the big drop-down notification and I don't like the way that when you press Enter, it refreshes the results. I guess it's safe to say I don't like it.