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Why did the searching change?

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  • Last reply by TonyE

thatgurl25
thatgurl25
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With the previous version of firefox, I would type a question, phrase, word, etc into my navigation bar, and when I hit enter, I would be directed to google or directly to a website. Now with the newest firefox, when I type anything besides an actual we address into my navigation bar, I am directed to "search query", which does nothing to help me find anything and should be renamed "web junk". Is there any way to get the old feature to work on the new firefox, or am I just stuck using the older version? Thanks in advance for help!

With the previous version of firefox, I would type a question, phrase, word, etc into my navigation bar, and when I hit enter, I would be directed to google or directly to a website. Now with the newest firefox, when I type anything besides an actual we address into my navigation bar, I am directed to "search query", which does nothing to help me find anything and should be renamed "web junk". Is there any way to get the old feature to work on the new firefox, or am I just stuck using the older version? Thanks in advance for help!

All Replies (1)

TonyE
TonyE
  • Moderator
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The change between Firefox 3.6.* and Firefox 4 is how location bar search works. In Firefox 3.6 it uses Google "Browse by name" search. With the browse by name search, it performs a Google search and if there is a clear match it will take you to the site, otherwise it shows the Google search result. With Firefox 4 it just performs a Google search if you type something which is not recognised as a URL.

To get the Firefox 3.6 behaviour on Firefox 4 you need to change a hidden preference.

  1. Type about:config into the location bar and press enter
  2. Accept the warning message that appears, you will be taken to a list of preferences
  3. Locate the preference keyword.URL, double-click on it and change its value to the link shown below

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=

If you prefer, you can also do this by installing the Browse by Name extension - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/browse-by-name