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What happened to the automatic search feature from the address bar which has been lost since firefox 4?

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  • 27 have this problem
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  • Last reply by TonyE

Emperorallan
Emperorallan
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Previously in firefox 3.5/3.6 there was a very useful feature where anything can be typed into the navigation address bar and firefox would automatically direct to the closest recognised webpage or direct to google search. What has happend to this feature in firefox 4? If this feature is not available in firefox for I will have to defer to Google Crome which has a similar feature.

Previously in firefox 3.5/3.6 there was a very useful feature where anything can be typed into the navigation address bar and firefox would automatically direct to the closest recognised webpage or direct to google search. What has happend to this feature in firefox 4? If this feature is not available in firefox for I will have to defer to Google Crome which has a similar feature.

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TonyE
TonyE
  • Moderator
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The change between Firefox 3.6.* and Firefox 4 is how location bar search works. In Firefox 3.6 it uses Google "Browse by name" search. With the browse by name search, it performs a Google search and if there is a clear match it will take you to the site, otherwise it shows the Google search result. With Firefox 4 it just performs a Google search if you type something which is not recognised as a URL.

To get the Firefox 3.6 behaviour on Firefox 4 you need to change a hidden preference.

  1. Type about:config into the location bar and press enter
  2. Accept the warning message that appears, you will be taken to a list of preferences
  3. Locate the preference keyword.URL, double-click on it and change its value to the link shown below

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=

If you prefer, you can also do this by installing the Browse by Name extension - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/browse-by-name