In addition to the CTRL/CMD + Enter shortcut mentioned in a sibling comment, you could also use your arrow keys to select a choice from your recent history.
I personally disagree with you that searching and moving a hand to the mouse or trackpad in order to click a result is faster than using only the keyboard and the appropriate shortcuts, bypassing a search engine.
This is a matter of understanding the features of your application and operating system. If you choose to only learn the features at the surface, that's your prerogative, but I don't think you can claim a particular strategy is faster or more efficient if you don't really grok the alternatives (I don't think you do judging by your various claims).
With your hacker news example, you would have to simply type news.y and if you visit frequently enough or have the site bookmarked, getting to the site should only be a matter of hitting down-arrow and then enter.
> This is a matter of understanding the features of your application and operating system.
I've written OS drivers on two operating systems. Clearly my ignorance of how computers work is my limitation...
> If you choose to only learn the features at the surface, that's your prerogative, but I don't think you can claim a particular strategy is faster or more efficient if you don't really grok the alternatives (I don't think you do judging by your various claims).
The alternative I suggest is more consistent across sites, solves typos, provides security advantages, and is certainly faster than type + arrow + arrow + arrow + enter (in particular as that list is inconsistent with entries shifting places often, plus there is lag between typing and the auto-complete list populating, Google loads almost as fast).
As soon as you get to your destination you're using the mouse anyway, so moving over to the mouse one click earlier is hardly a cost.
Honestly this entire discussion reminds me a lot of the "UI Vs. terminal" debate. It has nothing to do with actual efficiency in what you're trying to accomplish, and has everything to do with a feeling of superiority over the ignorant masses.
Personally I'm always going to take efficiency over smug superiority, and consistency is a key part of that. My method works for every site I visit, they're always No.1 on Google/Bing and the URL is always correct/without typos (even if I typo-ed them).
FWIW I think the time spent arguing over which method is fastest is probably greater than the time savings either way. I'm just surprised, I hadn't seen more experienced computer users with that usage pattern before. Some of what you're saying makes perfect sense.
I have a bit of a reluctance over sending unnecessary network traffic to Google (not really privacy-related in this case), but that's just a personal idiosyncracy.
I personally disagree with you that searching and moving a hand to the mouse or trackpad in order to click a result is faster than using only the keyboard and the appropriate shortcuts, bypassing a search engine.
This is a matter of understanding the features of your application and operating system. If you choose to only learn the features at the surface, that's your prerogative, but I don't think you can claim a particular strategy is faster or more efficient if you don't really grok the alternatives (I don't think you do judging by your various claims).
With your hacker news example, you would have to simply type news.y and if you visit frequently enough or have the site bookmarked, getting to the site should only be a matter of hitting down-arrow and then enter.