Before Firefox users who had installed the add-on needed to specify the root url of the website they wanted to search with the core search keyword > in front of the command in the address bar. The term >ghacks.net windows would for instance initiate a Google search for the term Windows on the site ghacks.net

The change now is that the the root domain name is no longer needed in the search phrase if the user is already on the right website. The search parameter would therefor be >windows to search for the term windows on Ghacks.net if the site is the active website.

It is still possible to use the generic search parameter to search other websites, for instance to search Lifehacker or Download Squad while on our website. All the other features of the CyberSearch add-on are still there. Users who never heard about the add-on before can take a look at the following demonstration video for an overview.

The CyberSearch add-on can be downloaded directly at the Mozilla add-on repository.

A new feature are link previews in the selection process. The description of the link along with other information (if available) are displayed in the web browser. Take a look at the picture to see how this is done:

That’s a big change to the previous version of Cybersearch where you did not get these previews. Another new addition in Cybersearch 2 is support for the Bing search engine which can now be used alongside Google Search. The default search engine can either be Bing or Google with the other search engine available through keyword commands in front of the search term. A set of predefined keywords are already available. It is for example possible to search IMDB (with imdb in front of the search term), Wikipedia (with wiki in front) or Google Video (gvid) with the option to add new keyword searches easily.

The latest version of Cybersearch can be downloaded from the developer’s website. It is only compatible with Firefox 3.x.

I had some complaints however. The major one was that Amazon Search was included when using the add-on which was pretty useless to me and that there was not a way to add other search engines, say Wikipedia, Yahoo Search or even from my own website to the add-on.

Ryan from Cybernetnews seemed to have similar thoughts when he reviewed the add-on after finding it on my website. He went a step ahead however and wrote his own version of it that provides all the features that I missed in the original extension.

Cybersearch is the name of the add-on. It basically makes it possible to define keywords for searches that are then displayed directly in the Firefox 3 location bar. It comes installed with a few defined ones like Google and Wikipedia but it is not a problem to change the existing ones or add new keyword searches.

It is furthermore possible to add searches that search multiple websites at once. Ryan added Lifehacker, Download Squad and his website to the keyword techy. I feel a bit bad that he did not add my site as well. Ryan if you hear that please add my site to it ;)

To perform a search one would simply write “techy keyword” in the location bar, say “techy firefox 3″ for results about firefox 3 on those three websites. It’s not a problem to add another site manually to it though.

The system is pretty flexible but makes use of (only) Google services from what I can tell. Sites like Wikipedia are searched using Google instead of the site search. If my vote would count for a change I would say that Ryan should at least add the two other major search engines (Yahoo and Life) to it. I prefer to have multiple options there.

The “Enable Keywords” box has to be checked after installing the Firefox 3 add-on before keyword searches can be performed. Wonderful add-on, pretty stable for a first release as well. Well done Ryan.