Workflows also remind me of Apple's own Automator.
Where with QS I had to "think" whenever I used it, Alfred's interface, in the parlance of apple, "just works".
For anyone with a fine-tuned Quicksilver install, you're basically weighing the more advanced features (e.g. "find file -> open with -> find application" is a favorite of mine) against Alfred's "Power Pack" - it'll cost you $ and probably a bit of speed to switch to Alfred. Ultimately though, a highly customized Quicksilver install has basically no competitors.
Think of all those times you google something just to click the first link. "twitter gem github", "ebay tickle me elmo", whatever.
Reassign Alfred's I'm Feeling Lucky (Google) hotkey to "L".
Now you can Opn+Space (whatever brings Alfred up), "l twitter gem github" or "l ebay tickle me elmo" and it brings you directly to the webpage.
It's also nice because it lets you type where you want to go instead of wasting brain cpu cycles remembering the URL. "l hacker news". "l rails guides". Or even "l ebay". "l github".
And you don't even need to have your browser open. Just do it from any other app. It's huge.
Bring alfred up -> type query -> start vimium link mode -> choose a result
It looks like this:
opt-space -> Riak ElasticSearch River -> f -> a
and it allows me to scan the results page, where I often need to hit the 3rd or 4th result.
I highly suggest picking up vimium if you use Chrome.
You'd be surprised how accurate your google intuition is. But the main reason you don't miss is because you're using this Alfred shortcut to go somewhere specific. In other words, it's helpful for navigating (when you know you'd want the first result), not when you don't actually know where you want to end up.
Consider these:
l wiki amphetamine
l gwern nootropics
l github turbolinks
l soundcloud radiohead
However, here are some bad usage examples because you're trying to navigate when you really want to search:
l amazon piracetam
l buy piracetam
edit: Not the best example considering Alfred ships with an Amazon shortcut (`amazon piracetam` actually launches an Amazon search), but I hope the point is still clear.
If im reading this correctly, with intelligent workflows I can populate my Alfred results list with carefully curated search results.
This looks like the push I need to pony up and support andrew like i shouldve been doing all along.