DuckDuckComplete Adds Information to Firefox's Address Bar

Martin Brinkmann
May 14, 2012
Updated • May 14, 2012
Firefox, Firefox add-ons
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After testing several Google Search alternatives, I made the full switch to DuckDuckGo earlier this year. It provides me with direct results that I can work with for the majority of queries, and the excellent !bang feature to redirect queries to other search engines. For Google, I would simply append !g to open Google's search result page for the entered query, which is pretty comfortable once you get the hang out of it.

I also switched the default search engine in Firefox to DuckDuckGo, to make use of the search right from the browser's address bar. You can follow the link above to find out how this is done in all major browsers.

What you did not get until now where search suggestions or information when you enter a search term into the address bar. This has changed with the release of DuckDuckComplete, a Firefox add-on that is adding the feature to the browser.

Once you have installed the add-on in the browser, you will notice that results appear to be different for some of your queries. You can best test this with simple queries first. If you enter speed of light for instance, you will see the first result returning the speed of light in meters per second, while the second and third result definitions from Merriam-Webster and Wikipedia.

Firefox's address bar can do conversions and calculations now after the extension has been installed. Not every direct lookup or calculation option is available though. If you check with the official goodies page, you will notice that several are not available directly from the urlbar yet. While you can get a random number immediately by entering random in the url bar, you won't get the temperature for New York displayed there. As a rule of thumb: All queries that lead to graphical displays are not available, while the majority of textual result queries are.

The extension is especially useful for Duck Duck Go users who work with those special queries regularly. It can speed up things, as it is now no longer necessary to run the query on the search engine's homepage, as it is already done and answered in Firefox's address bar.

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Comments

  1. Andy said on May 21, 2012 at 12:03 am
    Reply

    The Duck has some cool features. With it’s own WOT setting you can use WOT at work without doing anything illegal. I think…
    I really like the endless scrolling feature. Easy flow, no pagination.
    Does anyone else do that?

  2. Thomas said on May 15, 2012 at 9:21 am
    Reply

    Does it work only in the URL-bar, or also in the search-bar?

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on May 15, 2012 at 9:33 am
      Reply

      I have not tried as I do not use the search bar, but I think it is only for the url bar.

  3. Daniel said on May 14, 2012 at 8:08 pm
    Reply

    Does this work just with Aurora?
    I’ve set the keyword.URL to http://duckduckgo.com/?q=
    then added DuckDuckComplete and nothings changed.
    It’s still Google…

    Working with 13 b3

    1. Daniel said on May 15, 2012 at 9:51 am
      Reply

      Got it!

      Set up new profile + very few addons.

      1. Daniel said on May 15, 2012 at 10:02 am
        Reply

        Fastestfox addon with Enhance Aweseombar enabled was the culprit.

    2. Martin Brinkmann said on May 14, 2012 at 8:32 pm
      Reply

      It should work with all versions, check out the add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/duckduckgo-ssl/

      Do you have by chance another search related add-on installed in the browser?

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