Firefox update confusion

February 10, 2012 6:58 AM

Firefox update change doesn't take me straight to where i want to go anymore.

I finally updated my firefox. Before the update, when i searched "whatever" or "wiki whatever" in the address bar, it would take me straight to the wikipedia page for it (if it existed), or the closest thing. Now it only takes me to a google search page.
How can i get things back to the way they were?

posted by revikim to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Do you have the search bar on the top of your screen to the right of the address bar? That usually defaults to Google, but there's a drop down if you click on the Google icon that you can switch to Wikipedia. It saves whatever you switched it to last so you should only have to do it once. It also has a "Manage Search Engines" setting when you click on that dropdown where you can move wikipedia to the top of the list.
posted by Kimberly at 7:05 AM on February 10, 2012

Best answer: See Internet Keyword search on Mozilla support page here. You need to do the following:

1. Enter "about:config" in the search bar.
2. Accept the warning
3. Enter "keyword.URL" in the filter box
4. Double-click on the preference line and enter this as the new value:
http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=
posted by metric space at 8:18 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Kimberly, i meant the address bar, not the search bar (coincidentally - any way to make the search bar disappear? it's an eyesore :p )

(It wasn't just wikipedia either, if i searched, say, metafilter, it would take me to metafilter.com, now it took me to a google search for metafilter etc.)

Metric space, thank you, it worked :))
posted by revikim at 8:37 AM on February 10, 2012

Glad it worked. To get rid of the search bar:

1. Right-click on the empty toolbar background area immediately around the search bar.
2. Select "Customize..." from the menu.
3. Drag the search bar from the toolbar into the dialog box that pops up.
4. Hit the Done button.
posted by metric space at 9:11 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: it looks so pretty now :) thank you x2 :)
posted by revikim at 9:30 AM on February 10, 2012