Search the web from the address bar

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  • Revision id: 22987
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  • Creator: Swarnava Sengupta
  • Comment: "Filter:" has been changed in "Search:"
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  • Reviewed by: Swarnava
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If you enter text into the Location Bar that is not a valid Internet address (URL), Firefox will try to direct you to the location you intended. This article explains how use and customize this feature.

Internet Keyword search

When you type in the location bar and press EnterReturn, Firefox takes you to the Google search results page (i.e. http://www.google.com/search?q=)Firefox automatically takes you to sites with a clear match, else performs a Google search (i.e. http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=) for that search by default.

You can turn off the Internet Keywords search by changing a preference.

Note: This preference does not affect smart keyword searches from the Location Bar.
  1. Type about:config in the address bar and press EnterReturn.
    A warning page may appear. Click Accept the Risk and Continue to go to the about:config page.
  2. In the Search field, type keyword.enabled.
  3. Double-click the keyword.enabled preference to set its value to false.

Changing the Internet Keyword service

You can specify any valid URL to perform the Internet Keyword searches by modifying the keyword.URL preference in the about:config page:

  • To use Yahoo!, set keyword.URL to http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=,
  • For Bing, set it to http://www.bing.com/search?q= . Other services maybe specified similarly.
  • To reset the Internet Keyword service to use a standard Google searchGoogle's Browse by Name service, right-clickhold down the Ctrl key while you click on keyword.URL and select Reset.

Domain Guessing

If you enter an incomplete URL, Firefox can try to "fix up" the URL by adding a prefix, suffix, or both to what you type. For example, if you type www.microsoft in the Location Bar, Firefox will append .com to complete the URL. If you type mozilla.org, Firefox will prepend www. to complete the URL. This "guessing" is secondary to the Internet Keywords search described above - it does not work unless Internet Keywords are turned off.

Turning off Domain Guessing

You can turn off Domain Guessing by changing a preference.

  1. Type about:config in the address bar and press EnterReturn.
    A warning page may appear. Click Accept the Risk and Continue to go to the about:config page.
  2. In the Search field, type fixup.
  3. Double-click the browser.fixup.alternate.enabled preference to set its value to false.

Changing the prefix or suffix

You can specify a prefix (such as www) or suffix (such as .net) for the Domain Guessing feature.

In the about:config page, double-click the browser.fixup.alternate.prefix or browser.fixup.alternate.suffix preference. Enter the prefix or suffix you want Firefox to add to incomplete URLs.



Based on information from Location Bar search (mozillaZine KB), Domain Guessing (Mozilla.org End user documentation), and Internet Keywords (Mozilla.org End user documentation) For details and latest usage check these references.