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I recently switched back to Firefox from Chrome for a number of reasons, but there is one Chrome feature I really miss. For instance, I had the Wikipedia set to search with the keyword "w," so to search Wikipedia, all I had to type was "w Bill Gates" (without "") in the address bar and it would automatically search Wikipedia for Bill Gates. Is there any way to enable this in Firefox, or is there an extension that will do it for me? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

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3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Yep, the Quick Search add-on!

The Addon provides two convenient ways to use popular search engines: google, bing, yahoo, amazon, ebay, twitter, youtube, etc. In address bar, type one letter and followed by keywords to search; or select keywords and right click to search.

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wow, thanks so much! – Niphoet Mar 5 '10 at 20:38
Firefox has quick search built in... What is the point of this extension? – rakslice Jul 13 '11 at 19:45
@rak instead of clicking, selecting an engine, then typing in the query.... you highlight the query with the mouse then select the engine from the context menu. Few seconds shaved off here and there. – John T Jul 13 '11 at 20:35
up vote 6 down vote

No need of an extension, this feature is built-in. And as far as I remember, It was there even before google chrome exist...

Two methods:

Method one:

  1. Click on the search bar button and next on Manage search engine...

    alt text

  2. Select a search engine and click Edit keyword...

    enter image description here

  3. Insert your keyword. Click Ok x2. Done, you could use this keyword in the address bar.

Method two:

Go to the search engine page, right click the search box and choose Add a keyword to this search...

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A bookmark will be created, and again you could use the chosen keyword in the address bar.

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up vote 1 down vote

As fluxtendu pointed out, there are shortcuts for creating quick search keywords that work with the built-in quick search feature in Firefox from Mycroft searches and from search boxes on web pages. However, sometimes a site that you want a keyword for uses JavaScript for all its search boxes, and "Add a Keyword for this search..." doesn't work, but you know exactly the form of the URLs that it uses for a search.

(Firefox 4)

  1. Go to the Bookmarks drop-down on the Bookmarks toolbar
  2. Go to "Show All Bookmarks" to open the bookmark library
  3. Click on the "Quick Searches" folder, or wherever you want to keep your quick search bookmarks.
  4. Right click in the blank space on the right-hand pane, and click "New Bookmark..."
  5. Enter a name for the quick search bookmark
  6. Enter the keyword you want for the quick search in "keyword"
  7. Next to Location, enter the form of the URL that the quick search should open, with a %s in the place where the words that are entered after the quick search keyword should go.
  8. Click Add, and close the Library.
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