Tab + Enter no longer taking me to first Google search result in Chrome

This can be fixed by editing your search preferences, or the cookie that is set for them.

In my case it was caused by google instant being set to off. Turning it back on returned the 'tab to first result', and the 'up and down arrow keys to cycle through results' behaviours.

Others found deleting the relevant cookie worked. It's something to do with search prefs in general, as I get the desired behaviour in incognito mode even when google instant is on.

See google product forums post for discussion.

== UPDATE ==

I've just found that merely opening an incognito / private window and then closing it restores this behaviour for normal windows when it's stopped working.

These no longer work as Google have removed this feature, so you can't just turn it out like you used to be able to. The way you used to be able to do this was through:

Google Search > Settings > Search Settings > Google Instant Prediction > On

but it no longer works. I was so sad to see this feature go that I wrote a hack to re-engineer it. So far it only works with Google Chrome, but can be adapted to work with all the others:

1. Install Chrome extension ShortKeys.
2. Click on the ShortKeys menu and select "Options"
3. Click on "Add" and fill in the following fields:

Keyboard Shortcut: tab

Behavior: Run JavaScript

Label as: Result Picker

4. Paste the following JavaScript into the JavaScript code to run:

   document.selectedResultId=0
   
   function selectResult(newId){
       els = document.querySelectorAll("div.r h3")
       if(newId < 0 || newId >= els.length)
           return  //Could modify for page nav...?
       rp = document.getElementById("result-pointer")
       if(rp != null){
           rp.remove()
       }
       document.selectedResultId=newId
       el = els[newId]
       lnk = el.parentElement
       el.innerHTML = "<div id=\"result-pointer\" style=\"position:absolute;left:-15px;\">&gt;</div>" + el.innerHTML
       lnk.focus()
   }
   document.onkeyup=function(event){
       if(event.keyCode==38)
           selectResult(document.selectedResultId-1)
       if(event.keyCode==40)
           selectResult(document.selectedResultId+1)
       if(event.keyCode==13){
         var el = document.querySelectorAll("div.r h3")[document.selectedResultId]
         var lnk = el.parentElement
         var url = lnk.href
         if(event.ctrlKey){
           var win = window.open(url,"_blank")
           win.blur()
           window.open().close()
         }
         else{
           document.location = url
         }
       }
   }
   selectResult(0)
   

   5. Configure the Activation Settings:

Active while in form fields (Checked)

Websites (Only specific sites)

URLS (one per line): *www.google.*

This is what the Options page should look like

6. Click Save and then close your browser.

Instructions:

• When you restart you should see a little blue (or black) ">" appear by search results when you hit tab.

• The up/down arrow keys make it cycle through the results.

• Hitting "Enter" will navigate to the highlighted result.

• Hitting "Ctrl+Enter" to open the result in a new tab.

Happy Searching!

You need to enable "Google Instant predictions"

From Search Result Page > Settings > Search Settings > Google Instant predictions > On