How can I default Firefox to open Google's "past year" search option every time?
Hp 8510W "workstation" laptop.
Winxppro32
Firefox 17.0
No other OS installed.
WISH LIST... ...to set Google's default date range to "past year" under ALL circumstance. Open from desktop, open in newtab, and default to "past year" when opening a second time from Google's top toolbar.
I'm 2/3 there. That last one has me stumped.
There might be a more elegant overall fix to this problem. A single plugin perhaps. If anyone is aware of such please let me/us know. There appear to be many complex regedit and recoding suggestions, but I cannot/will-not go that deep into this just to fix this eminently simple shortcoming of Firefox/Google.
I tried the Google forums to no avail. Google, and it's forum members, just flat out do not have anything to offer here. The simplest remedy ought to be on their end but unfortunately it does not appear to be at all forthcoming.
So I got halfway there via re-setting the home page in Firefox's Tools...Options...General... ...Home Page: https://www.google.com/webhp?tbs=qdr:y
This defaults Google's date range to "past year" every time Google is opened from Firefox's desktop icon. 'y' can be changed to 'w' 'm' etc for week, month, etc. Default to year just works for 90 percent of my own searches.
Further, I pasted the same URL into Firefox's about:config values line for... browser.newtab.url; https://www.google.com/webhp?tbs=qdr:y
This enables the same "past year" defaulted Google home page to open with every new tab. That may not be for everyone, but that's my preference as well.
If I decide I need a shorter or deeper date range I can still drop down the box and choose it to override the default.... same as before..... it's just that the new default is "past year" instead of "anytime". All is good, almost.
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Like I said, that gets me 2/3 to my goal. The limitation I've discovered is that when opening any subsequent search via the present Google page's toolbar for
Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive Calendar More
... and then returning to "search" on that same bar, Google opens in it's default "anytime" date range.
So just for the sake of eliminating the obvious I went back into about:config. I did a "Search" for "Google" and found six new likely candidates for resetting the value from Google to..... https://www.google.com/webhp?tbs=qdr:y
These were....in order of likelihood .....
browser.search.defaultenginename;
https://www.google.com/webhp?tbs=qdr:y
browser.search.order.1;
https://www.google.com/webhp?tbs=qdr:y
browser.startup.homepage;
https://www.google.com/webhp?tbs=qdr:y
browser.contentHandlers.types.0.title;
https://www.google.com/webhp?tbs=qdr:y
browser.contentHandlers.types.0.uri;
https://www.google.com/webhp?tbs=qdr:y
browser.safebrowsing.provider.0.name;
https://www.google.com/webhp?tbs=qdr:y
I went back and navigated to a new Google home page by opening it from the desktop and then navigating to "images" and then back again to "search" and discovered, to my dismay, that it still opened the Google search page with "anytime" defaulted.
Soooooo.... can anyone guide me over this last hurdle?
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All Replies (4)
To make this work with search bar ,you need to find the "past year" parameter in the URL and then modify the google search engine to include that parameter on every search.
Can you elaborate on that please?
This is the url that displays with "search" from the Google toolbar https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&tab=ww
... and this is the only "past year" parameter in any url that I'm familiar with https://www.google.com/webhp?tbs=qdr:y
Are you suggesting that I can open that link "modify the google search engine" and include the parameter "webhp?tbs=qdr:y" somewhere there?
I don't mean to be a PIA, and I really appreciate your pointing me in the right direction, but could you talk me through a little of this?
Thanks so much
You can create a searchplugins folder in the Firefox Profile Folder and copy the google.xml file from that same folder in the Firefox program folder to that folder and rename the file to something like google-year.xml "Google (Year)". This is better then to edit the original files
You can use this button to go to the Firefox profile folder:
- Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder
You need to open the file in a plain text editor and change the shortname and description and add (Year) like "Google (Year)"
Then you need to extend the Param line and append the code to add the tbs=qdr:y param.
You should do this in all three sections (suggestion, keyword search, context search).
<Param name="tbs" value="qdr:y"/>
Then you should see an extra search engine in you click the search engine icon on the location bar that shows the results from the past year.
Make a backup copy of the file, so you can easily restore this file if you ever need a new profile.
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Thank you for that.
I'll check into it all.