Search For Highlighted Text With Context Search X For Firefox

Martin Brinkmann
Jan 30, 2012
Firefox, Firefox add-ons, Search
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6

I sometimes see phrases or words on a page that I need to look up. Sometimes, those phrases can also lead to additional resources about a certain subject that I'm researching. While I could highlight and right-click the phrase to search for it on the default search engine, I do not have options to search other search engines directly. For that, I would have to highlight and copy the phrase, open a new tab, and use keyword searches to run a search on the topic. Firefox users with the search form displayed in the browser interface can alternatively paste the phrase in the form and select a different search engine from the list.

The Firefox add-on Context Search X adds additional search engines to Firefox's right-click context menu to run searches right from there.

Once you have the extension installed in the browser, you can start firing away searches with a right-click on the highlighted phrase and the selection of the search engine that you want to search on.

context menu search

A list of all available search engines currently configured in the browser are displayed for selection. A click opens the search results page of the selected search engine in a new tab in Firefox.

You can click on Manage Search engines to change the order of search engines in the context menu, remove engines from the listing or modify the extension's behavior further.

One interesting option is the ability to configure search engines to appear in the root context menu instead of the extension's submenu.

manage search engine list

This is done with a click on the Context Menu button in the interface.

context menu

Select the Outside Submenu option to have the selected search engine appear in the root context menu.

If your favorite search engine is not installed in the browser, you can do so by visiting Mozilla's Search Tools page which lists hundreds of different search engines that can be added with a click. You can alternatively check out Add any Search Box to Firefox Search if your favorite search engine is not listed on the page.

Context Search X is a fork of the popular Firefox Context Search add-on which has not been upgraded for over a year. Firefox users who like to run searches from their context menu should take the add-on for a test drive. Those who are just looking to replace the default search engine can look at Replace Firefox’s Right-Click Search Engine to find out how to do that.

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Comments

  1. ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
    Reply

    Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on August 4, 2012 at 7:57 pm
      Reply

      Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.

    2. Leonidas Burton said on September 4, 2023 at 4:51 am
      Reply

      I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
      http://www.google.com/saved

  2. VioletMoon said on August 16, 2023 at 5:26 pm
    Reply

    @Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!

  3. Karl said on August 17, 2023 at 10:36 pm
    Reply

    @Martin

    The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
    https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/

    Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.

  4. Anonymous said on August 25, 2023 at 11:44 am
    Reply

    Omg a badge!!!
    Some tangible reward lmao.

    It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.

  5. Scroogled said on August 25, 2023 at 10:57 pm
    Reply

    With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.

    1. lollmaoeven said on August 27, 2023 at 6:24 am
      Reply

      This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)

  6. El Duderino said on August 25, 2023 at 11:14 pm
    Reply

    Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.

    And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.

  7. John G. said on August 26, 2023 at 1:29 am
    Reply

    First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm

    For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[

  8. Kalmly said on August 26, 2023 at 4:42 pm
    Reply

    Yes. Please. Fix the comments.

  9. Kim Schmidt said on September 3, 2023 at 3:42 pm
    Reply

    With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.

    Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.

    The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.

    If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.

    And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.

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