How To Change The Default Firefox 4 Address Bar Search Engine

I have removed the search form from the Firefox 4 interface in an effort to minimize the user interface of the browser. When I need to search I either load a search engine’s website right away or enter a search term in the Firefox address bar and use the search engine that’s being used by the browser.

That default engine is Google’s standard search which always loads the search results page. In Firefox 3 the browse by name feature was used instead, which opens a web page directly if Google is 100% certain that a web page is the correct answer to that request. The Wikipedia website would for instance be opened if you’d enter wikipedia into the address bar and hit enter.

Here is how you can restore that behavior, or switch to another search engine when you use the Firefox address bar to search the Internet.

Change Firefox Address Bar Search

Enter about:config in the address bar and hit enter. You may need to accept the warning page before you see the configuration options. Enter keyword.url in the filter and locate the parameter keyword.url.

The key has no value by default which means it uses the standard Google search option that always opens the search results page.

Double-click the parameter and copy paste one of the following urls into the form to change the default Firefox address bar search engine.

• Google Browse By Name: http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=
• Google I’m Feeling Lucky: http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&btnI=&q=
• Google Default: http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=
• Yahoo Search: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=
• Bing Search: http://www.bing.com/search?q=
• Ask: http://www.ask.com/web?q=

The new search engine is immediately active. It is a good idea to keep the about:config tab open for now, open a new tab with Ctrl-t and do some test searches to check that everything is working as intended.

You may want to use a different search engine, for instance a local Google search engine. The easiest way to get the right web address to paste into the preferences is to perform a search with an easily recognized search phrase. You can search for GHACKSNET for instance. If you perform that search on google.de you get the results page url

http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&source=hp&q=GHACKSNET&btnG=Google-Suche

All you need to do know is to remove everything after the q= in the url and paste that web address in the about:config dialog. This would be

http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&source=hp&q=

if you use this example. And that’s how you change the Firefox address bar search engine.

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Author: Martin Brinkmann, Wednesday April 20, 2011 -
Tags:Firefox, firefox address bar, firefox search, mozilla-firefox

Responses so far:

1. apex2000 says:

   April 21, 2011 at 2:23 am

   I, too, have removed the search form from the FF4 interface, as I also did with FF3. However, I use a different method for selecting which search engine to use:

   1. Install the ‘Add to Search Bar’ extension [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-to-search-bar/].
   2. Go to any search engine page, or any website that has a search form.
   3. Right click inside the search text box and choose ‘Add to Search Bar…’
   4. The ‘Add Engine to Search Bar’ dialog box will appear. In the ‘Keyword’ entry box, add a meaningful keyword for the search engine/web page – e.g. g = Google; gi = Google image; b = Bing, etc. – and click OK.
   5. In future, if you wanted to search Google Image for example, left click in the address bar, type in [gi] [space] [search parameter] – without the square brackets, of course – , and the Google Image page will open showing the results of your search parameter.

   I have about 15 of these aliases set up. They make surfing/searching so much easier for me.

   Give it a whirl and see!

   Reply
   • Anon says:

     April 21, 2011 at 8:35 am

     I don’t see how it is different from “Add Keyword for this Search..” feature of FF, so no need for an addon. I try to keep as less addon as possible.

     Reply
   • Martin Brinkmann says:

     April 21, 2011 at 9:16 am

     Aliases are great if you want or need to use more than one search engine. Great tip, thanks.

     Reply
2. Robert Palmar says:

   April 21, 2011 at 3:04 am

   I use the”Add to Search Bar” extension as well
   in conjunction with the “Context Search” and
   “Organize Search Engines” extensions.

   Any highlighted text can be
   searched from the context menu
   where I have six categories and a
   total of 34 search engines presently.

   Even with all that restoring the browse by name
   feature to Firefox is good to do anyway as
   I use that sometimes as well.
   Nice instruction, Martin.

   Reply
3. Lil_ndn says:

   April 25, 2011 at 6:12 pm

   Martin, here’s another similar question: when right clicking in Fx 4.0 it only suggests “google” search…can this be changed to use say, bing? Seems back in Fx 2.* I read and changed for another default search engines.

   Ride Free & Ride Safe, FTW (Freedom Thru Wisdom)
   Lil_nd

   Reply
   • Martin Brinkmann says:

     April 25, 2011 at 6:18 pm

     You could try Context Search https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/context-search/?application=firefox&id=240

     Reply
   • Martin Brinkmann says:

     April 25, 2011 at 6:23 pm

     Oh, you can also simply change the default Firefox search engine and it will appear in the right-click menu as well.

     Reply
     • Lil_ndn says:

       May 1, 2011 at 8:31 pm

       Thanks, Martin,

       Been out of touch while on sabbatical for past week…will enjoy the change to Fx in a short.
4. Mara says:

   April 30, 2011 at 10:42 pm

   Does anyone know if Dogpile can be used for this as well? I tried to figure out with its search URL, but when I changed it and tried a new tab search, it just took me straight to the Dogpile home page.

   Any help would be much appreciated!

   Reply
5. Shawn says:

   May 2, 2011 at 5:07 am

   Wow, thanks a ton!
   like, really. a ton. a metric ton of my thanks go to you.
   :)

   Reply
6. Brian says:

   May 7, 2011 at 7:00 pm

   Thanks–just what I needed when I needed it and nicely/simply explained.

   Reply
7. tommy says:

   June 18, 2011 at 5:33 am

   Awesome, just removed some junk by Google search !!! it’s been pain in my ass for so long.

   Reply
8. Heshan says:

   June 24, 2011 at 1:04 pm

   Thanks alot man….This was reaaalllyy helpful… keep up the good work :)

   Reply
9. Sean says:

   June 24, 2011 at 8:59 pm

   For Scroogle:
   http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/nbbw.cgi?Gw=

   Google sucks.
   Everyone, install Ghostery and AdBlock Plus…

   Reply
10. dudu says:

    July 20, 2011 at 2:01 am

    what is the difference between Google Browse By Name and Google Default?

    Reply
11. Kareem says:

    August 21, 2011 at 6:48 pm

    Thnx :D

    This also works on 6.0 :D

    Reply
12. Anthony says:

    September 1, 2011 at 11:44 am

    Hi

    Just an FYI

    To ensure that Bing is 100% removed from Firefox (sometimes updating the keyword.URL isn’t enough in about:config) – try the following ONLY if you are comfortable changing/editing file configs.

    - Exit Firefox.

    - Goto C:UsersMY_NAME-USERAppDataRoamingMozillaFirefoxProfilesi1ba68wi.default

    - Edit the file pref.js with notepad (or editor of your choice).

    - Replace ALL instances of the
    “http://search.conduit…….”
    WITH
    “http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=”

    - Restart firefox.

    Google should now the default address bar search engine..

    Anthony.

    Reply
13. kosdaisy says:

    September 25, 2011 at 11:51 pm

    thanks! you have ridded me of an annoyance!

    Reply
14. Amanda says:

    November 1, 2011 at 10:12 am

    Great tip! Thanks!

    Reply
15. Ravinder says:

    November 3, 2011 at 9:50 am

    thanks its great

    Reply