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Keyboard shortcut to change search engine broken? (Ctrl Up/Down)

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Some months ago I tried using Firefox Quantum and, even though I found the search bar to be horrible, I remember it was still possible to change the search engine on it using Ctrl+Up/Down, and it made the search bar more tolerable.

Now I decided to give Firefox Quantum another go to see if I could stomach losing so many features that I have on Firefox 56, but it seems that the search bar's Ctrl+Up/Down shortcut is gone, and now the search bar not only is horrible, but useless.

Is there any way of re-enabling this shortcut? I'm using Firefox Developer Edition 67.0b3 (64-bit).


Some clarification:

- I know I can use Ctrl+K to access the search bar and use the arrows to select a search engine, but when I type a search and press Enter, Firefox still uses the default search engine instead of the one highlighted using the arrows.

- I know I can use Ctrl+L to access the address bar and use the arrows to select a search engine, but that is not as nearly as straight-forward as using the search bar, as usually I have to scroll through a lot of suggestions from the address bar to finally get to the search engines. Also, this doens't allow me to see search suggestions from the search engine I choose.

- I know I can create keywords such as "g" for Google, or "d" for DuckDuckGo and use them to search, but I use dozens of search engines and this would not be a reasonable solution.

- Right now the search bar is useless even if I use the mouse: when I click on another search engine, instead of just changing the search provider and allowing me to type the search terms, it opens the search provider's website like it was a shortcut—if I wanted shortcuts I would create and put them on the bookmark toolbar!

Firefox used to have a simple and truly awesome search bar, which I still use on Firefox 56. When Internet Explorer was still the main browser, the feature that most stood out for me on Firefox, besides the tabbed browsing and the extensions, was the flexibility and efficiency of its search bar. Hell, I remember that some of my friends only changed to Firefox because I showed them the search engines that I had submitted to Mycroft Project! What happened to you Firefox? How did you get to this point?

Some months ago I tried using Firefox Quantum and, even though I found the search bar to be horrible, I remember it was still possible to change the search engine on it using Ctrl+Up/Down, and it made the search bar more tolerable. Now I decided to give Firefox Quantum another go to see if I could stomach losing so many features that I have on Firefox 56, but it seems that the search bar's Ctrl+Up/Down shortcut is gone, and now the search bar not only is horrible, but useless. Is there any way of re-enabling this shortcut? I'm using Firefox Developer Edition 67.0b3 (64-bit). ---- Some clarification: - I know I can use Ctrl+K to access the search bar and use the arrows to select a search engine, but when I type a search and press Enter, Firefox still uses the default search engine instead of the one highlighted using the arrows. - I know I can use Ctrl+L to access the address bar and use the arrows to select a search engine, but that is not as nearly as straight-forward as using the search bar, as usually I have to scroll through a lot of suggestions from the address bar to finally get to the search engines. Also, this doens't allow me to see search suggestions from the search engine I choose. - I know I can create keywords such as "g" for Google, or "d" for DuckDuckGo and use them to search, but I use dozens of search engines and this would not be a reasonable solution. - Right now the search bar is useless even if I use the mouse: when I click on another search engine, instead of just changing the search provider and allowing me to type the search terms, it opens the search provider's website like it was a shortcut—if I wanted shortcuts I would create and put them on the bookmark toolbar! Firefox used to have a simple and truly awesome search bar, which I still use on Firefox 56. When Internet Explorer was still the main browser, the feature that most stood out for me on Firefox, besides the tabbed browsing and the extensions, was the flexibility and efficiency of its search bar. Hell, I remember that some of my friends only changed to Firefox because I showed them the search engines that I had submitted to Mycroft Project! What happened to you Firefox? How did you get to this point?

All Replies (3)

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In Firefox 66, when the cursor is in the search bar text box, Ctrl+Down Arrow and Ctrl+Up Arrow change the default search engine. This has not changed since Firefox 43, and probably dates back to the mid-30s.

Modified by jscher2000 - Support Volunteer

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For some reason, this is not the behavior in my version. Right now I'm using the developer edition 67.0b5 (64-bit) and I cannot use this combination of keys to change the search engine in the search bar.

However, after updating to this version, when I select the search engine with Shift or Alt + Arrows, the search is done by the selected search engine—that was not the case when I first posted here.

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Yes, in another thread, it seemed to be a change in Firefox 67 (beta/developer). I think someone was going to file a bug about it. Do you have time to search:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/