Using Quick Search in Firefox
by Ari Solomon, PCSC Senior Student Consultant
In the Firefox Web browser there is a useful
feature called Quick Search.
This feature allows you to type a search query directly in to your
address bar in Firefox, without going to a search engine first.
As of this writing, this is a feature that is only available in the Firefox browser. Also of note is that this document has been written for users of the Windows operating system. Users of the Mac operating system may
still find this information useful, however various specifics will be different.
So let's say you want to use the
search engine Google and search
for "kittens." All you need to do in Firefox
is to go into the address bar, type "google kittens", and then press enter (or
click the "Go" button).
Voila! You should now be
looking at the first 10 results out of 2 million or so for "kittens" on
Google. That's all there is to it!
Modify an existing Quick Search
Let's try modifying one of the already-present Quick Search Bookmarks. In Firefox, click the Bookmarks menu. Inside the Bookmarks menu go the "Manage Bookmarks" option. Click on Manage Bookmarks, and a new window, "Bookmarks Manager," will open. The first thing to do inside this window is select the "Quick Searches" folder in the left column of the window. If you do not see this folder it could be that the folder tree has been collapsed. Click on the plus sign to the left of Bookmarks (so that it becomes a minus sign) and the rest of the tree should expand.
Once you have successfully
found and selected the "Quick Searches" folder, click on "Google
Quicksearch" and click on the Properties button. Now, you can see the anatomy of
a Quick Search Bookmark.
--The Name field corresponds
to the Bookmark's name in the menu. In this case, "Google Quicksearch".
--The Location is the actual address for the Web site.
In our example, this is http://www.google.com/search?&q=%25s&sourceid=firefox. Note the %s in the address -- this is a
variable. The variable lets Firefox know
that when you type "google kittens," it should open the location and replace
the variable with the word "kittens."
In any Quick Search, there will need to be a %s present in the address.
--In the Keyword field
you will want to put the word you wish to use for your Quick Search. By default it is "google". I changed my keyword simply to "g", so that on typing "g
kittens" into my address bar, I am taken to a Google search for kittens.
Creating a new Quick Search
Lets create a new Quick Search Bookmark. In order to do this, you will need to know the address of the search page you want to use -- which is best found by going to it first and then pasting it in to a New Bookmark.
For example, let's create a new one for Google Images. In Firefox, open www.google.com, and click Images. In the search box, type in "kittens" and press Enter. In the address bar, you will now see a long, complicated address, but everything including the word kitten and beyond is not needed for the paste.
Just copy http://images.google.com/images?q= into the Location field for the Quick Search, and add the variable "%s" to the end. The full path for the Location in this new Bookmark should now be http://images.google.com/images?q=%s . In the Keyword field, type in something like "gimages". Click OK, and that's all there is to it! You should be able to type "gimages (topic)" into your address bar and be taken to a Google Images search
for (whatever is) your topic.
