When a user enters a search term in the Firefox location bar (address bar, awesome bar) it is determined if the entered term is an actual web address or a search term. If it is a search term a search using the default search engine is performed. If it is a web address the web address is loaded directly.
Firefox assumes that all phrases that make use of a period are web addresses and will try to load them. This can be quite frustrating if a user wanted to look up a file name in a search engine. You can test that yourself by entering svchost.exe in the address bar. Firefox will try to load the website svchost.exe even though the .exe domain extension is not existent.
There is no Firefox setting or add-on that can restrict the extensions to the known domain extensions but there is another way to directly saerch for terms with periods in Firefox using the location bar.
All that is needed is to place a “?” before the search term. While a search for svchost.exe would result in a page not found error in Firefox a search for ?svchost.exe would perform the search in the default search engine and deliver the desired result.
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That’s a real tip! I will give it a try!…done… i just tried it and some words with the ? before it give me wikipedia results…nice!
Good find!
Another nice option is to use Cybernetnews‘ wonderful CyberSearch addon (also see here).
Among other features, it adds the ability to conduct Google searches and show the results directly within the AwesomeBar! In my opinion, this takes the AwesomeBar to the next level – a terrific addon worth taking a look at!
Webmaster that’s because those have authority listings. Whenever you enter a keyword in the location bar with a site having an authority listing for the site is loaded automatically, otherwise the search results are displayed.
USBMan I agree. A great Firefox add-on.
Firefox’s quick keyword search is also a solution to this. I have mine setup so typing “g svchost.exe” in the address bar searches google for svchost.exe, “w svchost.exe” searches wikipedia, etc. See http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/geek-to-live-fifteen-firefox-quick-searches-129658.php for more.
An excellent alternative to this, actually, is adding a keyword to a search box…like say, google or wikipedia’s. There’s a right-click menu option that pops up when you click in search boxes that does this, named something like “add keyword to this item” or whatnot. I use, for instance, g for google…so if I want to search for something in google, I hit ctrl+L, and type something like “g whatever” and i get my search! Yay! ^^.
Won’t putting it in quotes work too?