Firefox Tweaks: Address bar as Search BOX - Let Google make you feel Lucky!
ADVERTISEMENTS
If you use address bar as search box in Mozilla Firefox then you can skip to advance options!
Yes in Mozilla Firefox you can just type your search query in address bar and get the search results displyed to you!
By default, whenever you hit enter after typing anything in address bar (also called navigation bar/ URL bar), Firefox checks if entered string is valid address or not! If its valid address firefox tries to load corresponding site/page for you! (Note that here if site is down or you have misspelled address, it won’t get directed to search engine). If entered string is a invalid URL, it will be submitted to Google Search and search results are returned!
If its fine with you then its great but if you want to use Google Search with I am feeling option or want to use another search engine as default then read following steps to change defaults search engine or its parameter:
- Type about:config in address bar of Mozilla Firefox. A page with lots of text and 4 columns will get displayed!
- Type keyword.URL in filter box. The long list will be trimmed down to just one line!
- Right-Click on that line and select modify option. A box will be displayed.
- Enter any of the following string for corresponding search engine!
- Changes will be reflected immediately with out any restart!
#Search Engine List:
Default Google Search (In case you want to restore originals)
http://www.google.co.in/search?btnG=Google+Search&q=
Google Search with I’m Feeling Lucky (what the hell is difference?)
http://www.google.co.in/search?btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&q=
Yahoo search
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=
Microsoft’s Live.com
http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?fulltext=Search&search=
Wikipedia (GO option - Feeling Like Lucky)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?go=Go&search=
Technorati
http://www.technorati.com/search/
Glossary:
#Valid Address: A valid address is something optionally starts with protocols like HTTP (i.e. http://) and ends with domain name (e.g. .com, .org, .net, etc) and must not contain any space in between! So anything that does not this definition is a invalid address. Well firefox does not need to bother about all things and a simple check can be used - whether user entered address contains space or not!
#Google Search with I’m Feeling Lucky: From Google Search Homepage when you enter a query in search box and and instead of hitting Google Search hits I’m Feeling Lucky button, Google will redirect you to the first search result which is often what we want!
If you like this post, you may subscribe to my 
RSS feed or email alerts to receive automatic updates in future! Thanks for reading... :-)
Loading ...
i got what firefox does, but is it possible to do the same thing for ie?
@muratcamu
First Sorry for late reply as I went offline for Xmas vacations!
Now as we always say nothing is impossible there has to be way out to do this for Internet Explorer. But I do not use IE. So I personally can not help it!
But as I remember my windows day first check for registry if you want to do this for IE!
k… wishin you merry xmas and a very happy new year!
-Rahul
I am trying this at work where I am behind a firewall. I have the correct proxy settings in the connection manager and can visit any site provided that I type the .com or .org at the end in the address bar. It does not automatically redirect me like at home if .com is not there.
I pasted in the string for Google feeling lucking in keyword.URL as directed, but if I type nytimes, for example, as opposed to nytimes.com I still get a “Network Error (dns_server_failure)” message. However, if I copy and paste the Google string directly into the address bar, followed by “nytimes” after the = sign, it takes me to the proper web page. I’ve made sure there is no extra space at end of the string in about:config. Any idea why this is happening and how to fix it?
Earlier today my (Navigation, URL, Address Bar) was working just how I wanted it was working just like the google search and had the “G” beside the search, I installed quite a few add-ons to firefox later i noticed that the “G” was now a star and now it wont accept just anything only URL’s, I’ve tried for a couple hours to get it back the way it was i uninstalled firefox and reinstalled and it was the same, I tried this step by step and nothing changed.
I tried uninstaling all the add-ons and uninstall and reinstall firefox and still nothing, what do i have to do to get it to search google automatically from the url box?
@Michael
First sorry for late reply as I was offline for a long vacation.
Now only thing I can say about this your problem - try this hack from your home computer or any other computer which is not behind firewall.
If it works at other places then the problem is with your firewall/proxy server whose configuration I guess you are not permitted to change…
If you want to revert back the changes, just go to about:config , find keyword.URL in and click Reset from context menu.
@Kaleb
First sorry for late reply as I was offline for long time…
Now go to about:config , find keyword.URL in and click Reset from context menu.
If this does not work, try deleting profile folders…
Reinstalling firefox don’t help in most cases as most user/addon and other information is stored in folders called profile.
To delete profile folder…
1. Close firefox
2. Delete profile folders. if you need help to find profile folder, read this.
3. Start Firefox
Note: by deleting profile, you will loose everything - bookmarks, addons, history, saved passwords, etc