Start Google search query from activity - Android

Question

I was wondering if there is an easier way (or any way) to start a Browser with a Google search query. For example user can select a certain word or phrase and click a button

Answer 1

You can do this quite easily with a few lines of code (assuming you want to search Google for 'fish'):

String escapedQuery = URLEncoder.encode(query, "UTF-8");
Uri uri = Uri.parse("http://www.google.com/#q=" + escapedQuery);
Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, uri);
startActivity(intent);

Otherwise, if you would rather start up your own Activity to handle the browsing, you should be able to do so with a WebView: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/webkit/WebView.html

I think the better answer here is @zen_of_kermit's. It would be nice though, if Android allowed a user to provide the Search engine has an extra though for the ACTION_WEB_SEARCH, rather than just using Google.