Facebook has now made the annoyance of having several different browsers open at once finally come to an end. Users of Facebook now have access to search the Web on Facebook itself with the addition of its new search engine feature. Facebook and Microsoft collaborated to introduce Microsoft’s Live Search to the Facebook homepage.

Although the partnership between Facebook and Microsoft extends back to 2006, it was just recently on October 7 that Facebook officially introduced Microsoft’s Live Search engine. This new search engine application offers users a way to search the web without opening a second tab or browser.

The search box can be found on the top right corner of Facebook, which is also used for quick access to your friends’ profiles. It now shares the option to search the Web, which triggers results powered by Microsoft Live Search. AdCenter promotes Microsoft endorsements alongside the search results in a part of the “ad” portion of Microsoft’s and Facebook’s relationship.

Microsoft claims they will rely on the user feedback to decide other ways to integrate the Live Search more deeply into Facebook; they consider this to be a first step to Web integration.

The addition of Live Search on the Facebook platform helps Microsoft catch up with both Google and Yahoo, in that Google provides the web search and text-based ads on Myspace and Yahoo and advertising on Bebo (another social networking website). Web measurement firm comScore confirms MySpace generated 585 million U.S.-based searches in August, Google generated 10 trillion, and Facebook generated 186 million.

As being up-to-date has become essentially more up-to-the-minute, Facebook has already started tweaking the brand-new Live Search. Already, Live Search’s user status updates allow the user to ask for answers from friends about things one might search for. Facebook’s commenting feature about the Live Search addition became more popular after the upgrade.