Why do my Firefox quick searches not work anymore?

August 5, 2006 3:59 AM

Why do my Firefox quick searches not work anymore? I used to be able to to type "keyword + search terms" in my Firefox address bar to do quick searches, but now all it does is the "I'm feeling lucky" search instead. I can't see any options to turn this on or off, and can't find anything on Google that looks relevant to this problem. Any ideas about why this has gone? I'm running Firefox 1.5.0.5 on Windows XP Home SP2, if that's of any use.
posted by chorltonmeateater to computers & internet (9 comments total)

Maybe you've updated Firefox recently and the update removed some of your quick search keywords?


You may know this already, but quick search keywords are stored in the Quick Searches folder in your Bookmarks. Perhaps you've accidentally deleted that folder?

This site explains how to add your own keyword searches, if it turns out you have lost some keywords.
posted by roomwithaview at 4:33 AM on August 5, 2006

first thing, try updating to 1.5.0.6 and then see what happens.
posted by GleepGlop at 6:34 AM on August 5, 2006

The URL your keyword searches use is configurable. Type "about:config" in the address bar. Scroll down to keyword.url. Then edit the value - mine is set to http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=. You may need to restart your browser for changes to take effect.
posted by matthewr at 7:05 AM on August 5, 2006

same thing happened to me. You need to restore your defaults.

See if this helps:

http://www.tweakguides.com/Firefox_7.html
posted by any major dude at 9:32 AM on August 5, 2006

Type "about:config" in the location bar

find "keyword.enabled" and change it to "true"
posted by Lanark at 9:56 AM on August 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

Pardon the slight hijacking, but since we're on the topic of search integration in Firefix, does anyone know how to get it to behave like Mozilla?

In Mozilla, when you type things into the url bar, in addition to the autocomplete options that popup it will show at the bottom of the list "Google for [text that you typed in]". I can click on that entry and have my results.

Or use the keyboard to arrow up, which is why I long ago developed the habit of rapidly doing this when I need to search for something:

Control-L
type search terms
up arrow
enter

Works beatifully on the half dozen Mozilla installations that I've got in various places. Problem is, on one of those machines I had to go with Firefox, and by now I've got it working as much like Mozilla as possible except for this one thing.

I know there are various ways to improve search in Firefox (e.g. setting up the "g" keyword) but I just want it to behave exactly like Mozilla, as described above. Anyone know how to get Firefox to do this?
posted by intermod at 11:24 AM on August 5, 2006

Lanark almost has it. In about:config, look up keyword.URL, it probably has the following URL right now

http://www.google.com/search?btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=

Replace it with this:

http://www.google.com/search?q=
posted by winston at 6:47 PM on August 5, 2006

@ GleepGlop --

Sorry, I am actually using 1.5.0.6, I'd forgotten about that latest update.

@ roomwithaview --

I did chell the quick search bookmarks are still in place with all their keywords, so it's not that.

@ Lanark, Winston --

Sorry, I probably didn't word my question very well: I still want Firefox to do the "I'm feeling lucky" thing when I type any old thing into the address bar, it's just that it ignores when I type in one of the quick search keywords first. So, "keyword.enabled" is already set to "true".

Looks like any major dude might be right, just restoring everything to the defaults might be the answer. Shame, I was hoping to avoid doing that...
posted by chorltonmeateater at 10:14 PM on August 5, 2006

For anybody who's interested, I've decided to give up on quick searches altogether, and on the basis of this comment change the keyword.URL value to "http://yubnub.org/parser/parse?command=", meaning that anything I put into the address bar is executed as a YubNub enquiry, so I can do all sorts of searches and commands without having to bother with the whole keyword malarkey.
posted by chorltonmeateater at 5:52 AM on August 6, 2006