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Tab focus behavior when searching selected text

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  • 26 have this problem
  • 9 views
  • Last reply by bob2844

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In the previous versions of Firefox, when I selected some text on a webpage, right-clicked the text to get the context menu, and clicked the "Search" option (e.g. Search Google for "my text selection") the currently focused tab would stay focused and a new tab would be launched to handle the appropriate search in the background. Ever since I updated to Firefox 13, the new tab now receives focus when I do a search on selected text.

How can I switch back to the old behavior? This change in functionality is driving me crazy. When reading a webpage, I often like to select words and phrases about which I want to learn more and launch searches to Google and/or Wikipedia via the context menu. I almost always like to finish reading the current page before going off to read the new tabs. Even if I did intend to stop reading the current page and go to the new tab, it often takes many seconds for the new tab to load and I would rather keep reading the current page and switch to the new tab manually than stare at a blank tab while I wait for it to load.

In the "Tabs" tab of the options window, there is a checkbox for "When I open a link in a new tab, switch to it immediately." Is there anything like this for new tabs launched by a context menu search?

Thanks!

In the previous versions of Firefox, when I selected some text on a webpage, right-clicked the text to get the context menu, and clicked the "Search" option (e.g. Search Google for "my text selection") the currently focused tab would stay focused and a new tab would be launched to handle the appropriate search in the background. Ever since I updated to Firefox 13, the new tab now receives focus when I do a search on selected text. How can I switch back to the old behavior? This change in functionality is driving me crazy. When reading a webpage, I often like to select words and phrases about which I want to learn more and launch searches to Google and/or Wikipedia via the context menu. I almost always like to finish reading the current page before going off to read the new tabs. Even if I did intend to stop reading the current page and go to the new tab, it often takes many seconds for the new tab to load and I would rather keep reading the current page and switch to the new tab manually than stare at a blank tab while I wait for it to load. In the "Tabs" tab of the options window, there is a checkbox for "When I open a link in a new tab, switch to it immediately." Is there anything like this for new tabs launched by a context menu search? Thanks!

Chosen solution

hey bob, you can enter about:config into the location bar of firefox, confirm the info notification (in case it shows up), search for the preference named browser.search.context.loadInBackground & toggle it to true by double-clicking it. that should bring back the old behaviour...

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hey bob, you can enter about:config into the location bar of firefox, confirm the info notification (in case it shows up), search for the preference named browser.search.context.loadInBackground & toggle it to true by double-clicking it. that should bring back the old behaviour...

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Thanks, that did the job. It seems odd though that there is no way to toggle this behavior in the options window.