What's the difference between searching and browsing?

In query based searching, you enter strings that are used for the search. The query search relies on the metadata stored for the objects that are searched.

In the query based search, if you were searching a tree object, such as catalog, item class or structure, the query based search will only search the top object metadata unless you navigate to the object page where a query based search of the structure is provided.

In browse based searching, you are visually searching for the object. You have the ability to drill down through the structure of the object. For objects that are structured, the browse based search is much easier to use than the query base search since you just click to open each layer in the structure.