After reset my Firefox no longer opens web pages automatically when I type the keywords in the Location bar. How do I fix this?
Before I reset my Firefox I was able to just type words in the Location bar and Firefox would redirect me to the website. For example, typing "reservoir dogs imdb" would redirect to the IMDB page of this movie, and typing a random sequence of characters would take me to (for example) a website of some company that uses these characters as the abbreviation of its name.
I never set this option anywhere, it was just like that for quite a long time. Now this possibility is gone for me and I can't seem to fix it.
I use the laters Mozilla Firefox 21.
All Replies (6)
I had this problem over a year ago and it was fixed by changing the following config settings:
Try setting your about:config entries to:
1) keyword.enabled - > true
2) keyword.URL ->http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=
3) browser.fixup.alternate.enabled -> true
4) browser.fixup.alternate.prefix -> www.
5) browser.fixup.alternate.suffix -> .com
I installed windows security updates today and the above has stopped working for me again. If I do a system restore, the above search method works fine again. But obviously window's updates my PC again and it stops working again. I checked my about:config settings and they remain the same as above.
Can somebody please help me to make the search go back to the way it was? Besides advising how to use "location search" or getting rid of the windows critical updates.
I'm using the current version of firefox: 23.0.1
Thank you.
Modified by saquab
Starting with Firefox 23 the keyword.URL pref is no longer supported and it is no longer possible to specify the search engine for the location bar that way (keyword.enabled still works to disable this search).
The search engine that is used on the location bar and on the about:home page is the search engine that is selected in the search Bar on the Navigation Toolbar.
You can install the Keyword Search extension to specify with search engine to use for the location bar and which search engine to use for the about:home page via the Options/Preferences windows of this extension, accessible via the about:addons page.
- Keyword Search: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/keyword-search/
cor-el, thanks for that, but I like keeping the minimum amount of add-ons on my browser. That add-on works fine (just checked), but I would prefer it to work like that without the add-on.
Are you sure it's not possible? It was working fine with version 23 until the Microsoft/Windows update.
Much obliged.
Another possibility is to disable keyword search (keyword.enable = false) and use a (one letter) keyword search for searching via the location bar.
You can add a keyword to an installed search engine via Manage Search Engines (click the search engines icon on the search bar) and you can add a keyword to a bookmark in the Bookmarks Manager (Show All Bookmarks).
That will allow to switch easily between search engines when you search via the location bar and there also is no problem with a one word search.
Thank you, cor-el, but I've decided to stick to the add-on that you advised. Much obliged for your help, sir.
Best regards