Trouble with "last used search engine" feature

[Carl Jacobsen]

First off, I *love* PopSearch - I used to use things like Keywurl, to
let me directly search sites of my choosing, but I want to stick to
add-ons that follow Apple's approved methods (hey, Input Manager hacks
are so five years ago). PopSearch means that I can once again, for
example, look up movie without waiting for iMDB's front page to load,
and that makes me smile every time I use it.

Second, putting my money where my mouth is, as they say, I just sent
in a donation.

Third, and *please* don't take this as "I donated so now you have to
do my bidding" (I certainly don't see it that way), but the recent
change to track per-website "last used search engine" info, storing it
in the login keychain, is giving me some grief. I'll describe the
problem in some detail to hopefully give you some insight to why I'm
having (and others might be having) trouble with this feature.

The idea of "default to the same search engine you used from this site
last time" isn't very useful to me, because my mental leaps and reuse
of browser windows can be pretty random, and I keep my login keychain
locked as a matter of course. This means that PopSearch is now causing
Safari to prompt me at random times to enter my password. This is a
bit of a security issue for me, as I have to stop for a moment and
consider the situation, every time, to make sure the reason my
password is being requested is legit (plus, extra typing and
distractions).

I've tried moving the "Safari Extension: com.canisbos.popsearch-
ZANVZTSER6" keychain entry to another keychain where I keep the
passwords that Mail and iCal need (I keep this keychain unlocked all
the time, so that Mail doesn't constantly hassle me for passwords),
but it seems that every time PopSearch updates the entry (every time
it uses it?), it gets moved back to my login keychain.

So, I'd like to suggest adding an option (checkbox in PopSearch's
option panel), to entirely bypass the "last used search engine" code
(just let it work like it did in earlier versions.

Alternatively, if there's something you can do to make sure the
updated entry gets written back to the same keychain it came from,
that would cure my problem, though, again, I hop around so much
between trains of thought, search engines, and available browser
windows, that the "last used search engine" really isn't very
effective for me.

Many thanks again for writing a great program!

[Canisbos Computing]

Hi Carl,

I was frankly flabbergasted to learn upon reading your message that the per-site last engine memory feature of PopSearch was causing the issue you described. Since I keep my login keychain unlocked, I simply never experienced the issue! And since you are the first user to point the issue out, I can only assume most people also keep their login keychain unlocked. Thanks very much for pointing the problem out to me.

I will try to release an update addressing this issue today.

BTW, thanks for the generous donation!

Regards,
Chul

[Canisbos (developer)]

PopSearch 1.3.4 is now out. It addresses the issue highlighted by Carl
Jacobsen by adding two new options. The first option lets you turn off
the per-site search engine memory feature altogether. The second
option lets you, if you choose the keep the memory feature enabled,
choose whether to keep the recent site list in encrypted or
unencrypted form.

My blog at canisbos.com has a few more details. Please let me know if
this works for you.

Chul

[Carl Jacobsen]

Thank you! Version 1.3.4 fixes things nicely! Safari has stopped
hassling me for keychain access.