How to disable "web search" in the location bar of a webbrowser?

Question

So sometimes I have passwords in the clipboard, to paste them to different places, etc.

But: Sometimes (rarely :) ) it could occur that I paste the passwords in the location bar of my web browser (using Google Chrome, Firefox), and then....hit enter.. 8) (more rarely :P )

How can I disable this feature in these two browsers?

Because in e.g.: Google Chrome I don't even have to hit enter after accidentally pasting the password in the location bar, because it has a feature called: "Instant Search for faster searching and browsing", so it pre-fetches Google hit results, sending my password in an unencrypted channel.

Answer 1

Don't know of a way to do exactly what you are looking to do, but may have a couple of alternative solutions.

First is storing your pwds in something like Keepass. The cool thing about this is that when you grab your password (i.e. double click on it). It removes the your password after short period (I think something like 12 seconds).

The second is to turn off instant search in google preferences (http://www.google.com/preferences) -

Edit - Revised Pic (That pic wasn't even close to the right spot...it has been that kind of day...)

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

In Firefox (tested in version 50), go to about:config, accept the warning and then search for "keyword". Double click on keyword.enabled to set it to false.

This means if you type "keyword" into your location bar then it will look for a local server called keyword and if it can't find one it will show the server not found error instead of falling back to a web search.

You can still use Smart Keywords (see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-search-from-address-bar) and you can run a web search using the separate search box.

Answer 3

1. Right click on Navigation Bar (not on any button),
2. Choose Customize...,
3. Then drag the WebSeach onto the newly opened window,
4. Click Done.

Answer 4

"The default Google search is encrypted to prevent eavesdropping." (Firefox). Also true for Chrome as of version 25.

It's still appalling how hard Firefox seems to make it, to protect your privacy against Google.

To disable Google search from the location bar, I visited about:config and edited "browser.search.defaultenginename". Right click on the value "Google", select Modify, press the delete key and then OK :). I've run like this for a long time and it seems to work fine.

Answer 5

Web search or any kind of conversion of typed value into anything else but a valid URL, is disabled by setting keyword.enabled property in about:config page to false. This applies to at least Firefox 57, and probably goes some versions back (and forward).

Reference for the setting at Mozilla's: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keyword.enabled