I definitely don't consider myself a "computer novice" and I myself also do this.
Since Chrome merged the address bar and search bar, when I type in e.g. gmail, I can hit enter and click once, or I can type in gmail.com, however while the typing and clicking may take the same period of time, the clicking is more efficient for other sites where the login isn't on the root page, or if I typo.
I think somewhat ironically Hacker News is a great example of where this pattern is a time saver. Typing in "news.ycombinator.com" is first off a mountful (typeful?) and secondly easy to typo.
As strange as this sounds, I also consider searching a "security feature." If you typo near popular sites, you'll find a lot of phishing sites with identical layouts which could be mistaken for the original sites (you did think you typed in "gmail" after all, not "mgail" or something). Search engines save you from this.
What this usage pattern is really doing is using search as an extra semantic layer on top of DNS.
It could be for any number of reasons - ignorance of the differences, or as typo checking, or as an intentional shortcut for a cumbersome url like ycombinator. But the usage pattern has turned out to be quite valuable, to have that layer of semantic processing in navigation, free from the rigid technical and structural constraints of DNS.
The regrettable part is when that semantic layer guesses wrong on some input, wrong being defined as something other than the user's intent. That's an abstraction leak, which as always you can't make up for unless you understand the underlying abstraction.
That the implementation of semantic navigation ended up piggybacked on search might be a bit weird. Maybe it could have been done something like AOL Keywords. But unexpected piggybacking in technology certainly does happen, like when our calculators ended up riding along on our pocket telephones.
In the news.ycombinator.com case, wouldn't Chrome's recently-visited list take care of that for you? On mine, "new" in the address bar brings up news.ycombinator.com, newegg.com, etc.
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.
This is exactly why I prefer to have my search box and my address bar separate, as in Firefox. I use the address bar for quick jumps through my browsing history, ordered by Firefox's very well-tuned "frecency" algorithm. Getting to Hacker News is "ha" then down+enter. Twitter is "tw", Gmail is "gm", etc. Meanwhile, "ha" in my search box gives me all sorts of random things that I've searched for: "haight ashbury san francisco", "the parser hack", "demographics of hawaii in 1940s"... I can't imagine the annoyance of having this stuff showing up in my address bar history.
In Chrome, bookmarking a site boosts it nicely in the suggestions (that's almost the exclusive reason I bookmark nowdays, without caring to categorize).
I've bookmarked HN so "ha"+down+enter is sufficient.
But for most sites, Chrome single bar works well as-is.
Since Chrome merged the address bar and search bar, when I type in e.g. gmail, I can hit enter and click once, or I can type in gmail.com, however while the typing and clicking may take the same period of time, the clicking is more efficient for other sites where the login isn't on the root page, or if I typo.
I think somewhat ironically Hacker News is a great example of where this pattern is a time saver. Typing in "news.ycombinator.com" is first off a mountful (typeful?) and secondly easy to typo.
As strange as this sounds, I also consider searching a "security feature." If you typo near popular sites, you'll find a lot of phishing sites with identical layouts which could be mistaken for the original sites (you did think you typed in "gmail" after all, not "mgail" or something). Search engines save you from this.