How to restore location/search preferences after upgrade to v. 23.0.1
This morning, Firefox updated to 32.0.1. Last night, I was able to search from the address/location bar using Google by just typing my keywords and hitting enter. Meanwhile, I had the search bar set for Wikipedia so that I could do a specifically Wikipedia search by typing in that bar. This morning, post update, I have to set the search bar to Google to search from the address bar; there seems not to be a way to have the two bars set with different search targets.
Explain? Or, more importantly, please provide me with a fix for this?
All Replies (6)
As I guessed from other support questions, it seems Firefox now uses default search engine for both address bar and search bar.
In the case you want to keep using Wikipedia and Google one in each bar, you can use keywords as a workaround.
- Move the mouse cursor inside the search box at the top right of the Firefox window and click the down arrow next to the provider's logo.
- From the dropdown list, select Manage Search Engines....
- Choose the search engine you want to control from address bar and click Edit keyword...
- Type a letter or word, for example g and click OK twice.
Now when you type "g something" in address bar, you will search for "something" in Google.
I don't believe this. This is totally contra-productive. Why have two bars if firefox doesn't differentiate anymore? What is this "improvement" good for?
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.
The search engine that is used in the location bar is the search engine that is selected in the search Bar on the Navigation Toolbar.
You can disable automatic searching via the location bar by setting keyword.enabled to false and use a (one letter) keyword search to use a specific search engine instead to search via the location bar.
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 set a keyword for an installed search engine via Manage Search Engines (click the search engines icon on the search bar).
That also allows to switch easily between search engines when searching via the location bar and you also do not have a problem with one word searches.
See also:
- Keyword Search: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/keyword-search/
This is so stupid. Why would you get rid of this feature? Now having the address bar and the separate search bar is completely redundant.
Thanks for the help.
This was very disappointing, because I just recently realized I could set the search bar for Merriam-Webster and use the location bar for Google searches. And suddenly, I couldn't!
At least now I know it's nothing I did.
But why? Why?
Hi bonitakale, one reason is many peoples' address bars were getting hijacked by bad add-ons and malware. Another reason might be an anticipated redesign of the address bar area, possibly doing away with a separate search box in a future version. (I read that somewhere, but haven't researched it.)