This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Can't "Google" email addresses in address bar

  • 3 replies
  • 0 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by cor-el

jude6
jude6
more options

Desired behaviour: In Chrome, I can paste or type an email address into the address bar, hit enter, and it Chrome will "Google" that email address.

Firefox behaviour: In Firefox, if I paste or type the email adderss "happy@gmail.com" in the address bar, it takes ages to do anything then says "You are about to log in to the site “gmail.com” with the username “happy”, but the web site does not require authentication. This may be an attempt to trick you."

How do I stop it treating emails as a log in and simply search the email address? Thanks

Desired behaviour: In Chrome, I can paste or type an email address into the address bar, hit enter, and it Chrome will "Google" that email address. Firefox behaviour: In Firefox, if I paste or type the email adderss "happy@gmail.com" in the address bar, it takes ages to do anything then says'' "You are about to log in to the site “gmail.com” with the username “happy”, but the web site does not require authentication. This may be an attempt to trick you."'' How do I stop it treating emails as a log in and simply search the email address? Thanks

All Replies (3)

zeroknight
zeroknight
more options

The default action for emails intentionally does not do a search for privacy and security reasons (Bug 1412985). You can easily specify a search by pressing the down arrow key or selecting the desired search engine.

jude6
jude6 Question owner
more options

That's a shame. Privacy and security for whom? I read the bug page but a lot of it went over my head!

I google search email addresses a lot to verify them and find further contact info about businesses.

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

You can append a "?" to initiate a search: happy@gmail.com?

Firefox supports logging in with a name and password via username:password@xxxx.yy, so typing/pasting an email address will initiate a login like you noticed.