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Search engine shortcuts in address bar

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I have noticed that when I type "!g" in front of my search string in the address bar, the search is done with google despite using a different search engine. In addition, almost every letter on the keyboard will search a particular domain. For example, "!r" searches through reddit.

The weird thing is that I cannot find any documentation of this anywhere, and I cannot find any settings on this anywhere. The only similar thing is being able to use "@" with a custom keyword that has been previously set in the "search engines" menu in the settings. But this menu is limited and it is difficult to add search engines to it, as it requires you to visit that website, find the green plus sign in the tiny looking glass icon on the search bar next to the address bar, and click it and add the search engine. Then you can customize the keyword and then you can use, for example "@w" for example, to search wikipedia. But not every website gives you the option to add their search engine. For example,visiting Reddit results in no green plus sign over the looking glass icon in the search bar next to the address bar, despite the fact that "!r" works just fine.

So this is all very confusing, I hope someone can tell me what is going on. Thanks.

I have noticed that when I type "!g" in front of my search string in the address bar, the search is done with google despite using a different search engine. In addition, almost every letter on the keyboard will search a particular domain. For example, "!r" searches through reddit. The weird thing is that I cannot find any documentation of this anywhere, and I cannot find any settings on this anywhere. The only similar thing is being able to use "@" with a custom keyword that has been previously set in the "search engines" menu in the settings. But this menu is limited and it is difficult to add search engines to it, as it requires you to visit that website, find the green plus sign in the tiny looking glass icon on the search bar next to the address bar, and click it and add the search engine. Then you can customize the keyword and then you can use, for example "@w" for example, to search wikipedia. But not every website gives you the option to add their search engine. For example,visiting Reddit results in no green plus sign over the looking glass icon in the search bar next to the address bar, despite the fact that "!r" works just fine. So this is all very confusing, I hope someone can tell me what is going on. Thanks.

Chosen solution

There is nothing dirty going on here. I assume that you are using DuckDuckGo for your searches. Well it comes with a feature called Bangs .

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Chosen Solution

There is nothing dirty going on here. I assume that you are using DuckDuckGo for your searches. Well it comes with a feature called Bangs .

Modified by Balázs Meskó