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Some searches going straight to Wikipedia not Google results

  • 5 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by cor-el

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I use the omnibar for searches, not the separate search field. Recently, actually just today, when I do some searches, for instance, I search "Rashida Jones", expecting to get Google search results, it is instead taking me straight to the Wikipedia site for Rashida Jones. I put in "judge Dredd", it does the same thing. But when I type in "Football" (and just tried this for first time now) it takes me directly to www.bbc,com's football page. "oblivion" takes me to IMDB. I've ran Firefox with addons disabled and does the same thing. What needs changing here?? Scott

I use the omnibar for searches, not the separate search field. Recently, actually just today, when I do some searches, for instance, I search "Rashida Jones", expecting to get Google search results, it is instead taking me straight to the Wikipedia site for Rashida Jones. I put in "judge Dredd", it does the same thing. But when I type in "Football" (and just tried this for first time now) it takes me directly to www.bbc,com's football page. "oblivion" takes me to IMDB. I've ran Firefox with addons disabled and does the same thing. What needs changing here?? Scott

All Replies (5)

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hey scott, enter about:config into the firefox location bar (confirm the info message in case it shows up) & search for the preference named keyword.url - right-click and reset that entry to the default value. this should address the issue and direct you to google with the search results...

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Thanks Philip! That did the trick. Any idea how that all of a sudden started doing that?

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unfortunately i don't know what may have triggered this change originally - maybe some of your addons played a role in it. but the search parameter gfns=1 in the previous value of the keyword.url preference (http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=) caused the redirection to the first search result...

Modified by philipp

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I see. Thanks for your help anyway. Top man!

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You can also reset these prefs as they are no longer used in current Firefox versions and they will disappear after a restart.

  1. browser.history_expire_days.mirror: 180
  2. browser.history_expire_days_min: 7

Your keyword.URL had this value and that make Firefox do a Google "Browse by Name"


You also have the fixup disabled (add www. and .com automatically):

  • browser.fixup.alternate.enabled: False