I'm trying to figure out how to test the speed of seach engines. I'm not sure if Java is best to use for this purpose, but I figured it would be good since it is supposed to interact with the internet and other applications well. However, I can't seem to find the specific libraries involved with interaction between whatever code I write and any sort of web browser. I have figured I would associate the search itself with a thread that will "time" the search engine takes, but I am also unsure of the way to return the time. I want my final product to be able to continuously open a search engine and run searches timing each one and print the time to a file.

If you have any idea what I am talking about and feel you have some constructive input, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

What you want to do is tantamount to a denial of service attack, don't do it.

As to the technicalities involved, there's no need to interact with a browser at all. Just use UrlConnection.