How to add search engines to Firefox and use them from the adress bar

For a few years already browsers offer a small search box in the right of the address bar (which can be selected from the keyboard with CTRL+E shortcut). Here you can enter keywords that are then searched on search engines like Google, Yahoo and websites like Wikipedia and IMDB. You can customize those search engines and the default one used for search. It might seem very convenient but it’s hard to use in practice is you want to use anything but the default search provider in that list.

In this post I’m going to show you how you can use Firefox to search directly on its address bar using any of the search engines you’ve configured for this browser.

How to configure search providers for Firefox

Selecting a search provider to use

This is good to know before we start into the advanced stuff. Just press the down arrow right of the icon of the current search provider used in Firefox search box. It displays the list of current search engines plus a link to “Manage Search Engines”. In the windows that opens next you see the detailed list of current search engines with options like move up, move down, remove and “get more search engines”. Pressing the latter link opens a new Firefox Tab with a list of search engines to choose from. From here things are pretty self explanatory.

How to search a specific search engine using the Firefox address bar

Advanced options for search engines in Firefox

Here’s the smart part: go back to “Manage Search Engines” and select each of the search engines you want to be able to use from the address bar and select Edit Keyword. I’ve set up a different letter for Google (g), Yahoo (y), Wikipedia (w) and IMDB (i), but you can select anything you want.

After you’re done just enter the following combination in the address bar and you’re done: “shortcut keyword”. For example in my case:

• typing “g make a website” searches on google using the “make a website” keywords
• typing “i inglorious bastards” opens up an IMDB page with the search results from “inglorious bastards”

It’s easier now to search whichever search engine you’re using with no additional clicks. If you want to use only the keyboard the shortcut for positioning the cursor in the address bar field is ALT+D. Hope you liked this short post!