Firefox URL Auto-Go?
In firefox 3 (I just upgraded to 8..) I used to be able to type something like this, in the address bar: "youtube pink floyd welcome to the machine" and it would automatically go to the most common youtube page that fit that description. Another example: "imdb iron man" and it would take me directly to the page about Iron Man on IMDB.
Firefox 8 doesn't seem to do this, and only goes to a google search page. Is there any way to change this? Perhaps in the about:config? Or even an add-on?
Chosen solution
For what you were doing you would need to change your keyword.URL in your "about:config" settings. See Location Bar search (external - search engine) -- this was the value in Firefox 2 which seems like what you had carried over:
I use keyword shortcuts and keep then in a folder named "K" on my bookmarks toolbar that contains my keyword shortcuts in alphabetical order, and some additional folders.
I can make them very specialized so I don't have to enter a lot of search arguments into search boxes. But there is no way that I can get what I want from the first hit let alone the even the first ten hits. I look for 100 hits at a time, not the default of 10.
Name: imdb: The Internet Movie Database
- Location: http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=%s
- Keyword: imdb:
- Description: IMDb: The biggest, best, most award-winning movie site on the planet.
So to use type: (presuming that iron would be next to man in wording)
- imdb: iron-man
- imdb: intitle:iron-man
The following was just created by right-clicking in the You Tube search box, the choosing "Add a keyword for this search..." which is built-in to Firefox.
Name: yt: Search YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.
- Location: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s&oq=&aq=&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=
- Keyword: yt:
- Description: Share your videos with friends, family, and the world
For more information on keyword shortcuts see
Read this answer in context 👍 2All Replies (7)
Those are 'smart keywords' setup in Firefox. Did you create a new profile when you upgraded? They should have carried over...
If not, here is how to add them -> http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Smart%20keywords
The concept sounds exactly the same as what I'm looking for, but I never had to create a "smart keyword" in the first place for this to work. And as far as I know, I kept the same profile. As computer illiterate as it sounds, I just installed 8.* ontop of 3.*, it never asked me to create a new profile so I assume it kept the same one?
I'm unfamiliar with all the new firefox stuff because I was a hardass and refused to upgrade until now.
Then you kept the same profile... :-)
You may have had an add-on that did it for that isn't compatible with 8. I suggest the smart keywords route as it is the "supported" feature
(Shhh.....I run both 3.6.24 and the latest nightly on my PC)
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Chosen Solution
For what you were doing you would need to change your keyword.URL in your "about:config" settings. See Location Bar search (external - search engine) -- this was the value in Firefox 2 which seems like what you had carried over:
I use keyword shortcuts and keep then in a folder named "K" on my bookmarks toolbar that contains my keyword shortcuts in alphabetical order, and some additional folders.
I can make them very specialized so I don't have to enter a lot of search arguments into search boxes. But there is no way that I can get what I want from the first hit let alone the even the first ten hits. I look for 100 hits at a time, not the default of 10.
Name: imdb: The Internet Movie Database
- Location: http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=%s
- Keyword: imdb:
- Description: IMDb: The biggest, best, most award-winning movie site on the planet.
So to use type: (presuming that iron would be next to man in wording)
- imdb: iron-man
- imdb: intitle:iron-man
The following was just created by right-clicking in the You Tube search box, the choosing "Add a keyword for this search..." which is built-in to Firefox.
Name: yt: Search YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.
- Location: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s&oq=&aq=&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=
- Keyword: yt:
- Description: Share your videos with friends, family, and the world
For more information on keyword shortcuts see
Modified by David McRitchie
@fmdeveloper: Oddly enough, all my add-ons carried over. None were incompatible with 8. Also, I am setting posts as helpful but I'll wait till I at least get a full answer as to why this no longer works as it did before, for the solution.
@dmcritchie: I do understand the smart keywords system; my question now is why did I never have to go and manually create a smart keyword. It worked for any site, even if I'd only been to it once, or even if I'd never been there. It always worked, with many different sites.
I see what you mean by the google thing, I'll give that a try. I did, however, find this in the config: browser.places.smartBookmarksVersion It's set to version 2.
Modified by RavenPanther
@dmcritchie
Setting my url.keyword string as "http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=" seems to be exactly what I was looking for!
THANK YOU SO MUCH! I've been crying my heart out since Firefox 4 came up because I am 100% addicted to this Auto-Go feature from v3. Thanks to you, now I'm using the latest version of Firefox AND I get to go automatically redirected to pages I want to, without getting that google search results page.