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I am using Firefox Developer Edition 57 and have search bar integrated with address bar like Chrome has. I like this feature, but have problems when I want to search for something that is or looks like URL; for example today I wanted to search for "mean.js".

In Chrome when I hit CTRL + K on keyboard (that's the way I invoke the search all of the time) ? is added in the very beginning of the address bar, which marks that whatever I enter is a search term. That way even if I enter a URL (like "mean.js") Chrome searches for that URL in the default search engine, instead of opening that URL. It seems it doesn't work that way in Firefox (even when I add ? manually).

Can I somehow force the Firefox to search for URL instead of opening it, when searching from the address bar?

Robert Kusznier
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3 Answers3

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I personally use keywords for search engines, for ex.: "#qw www.url.lol" will search "www.url.lol" on Qwant. Go to "preferences > Search (tab)" and set new keywords to the search engines.

Azarilh
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Ctrl + K works in Firefox now forcing address bar to do the search. The same can be emulated by prefixing the search terms with ?.

Robert Kusznier
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I was having the opposite problem. I tried to go to a url I copied from a web page (that was not set up as a link). Firefox and other browsers were searching for the url (or the website) instead of going there.

It turned out that there was a space in it that was hard to notice.

So a space in the string on the address bar forces a search rather than going to the address.

I hope this helps somebody. However, whatever options I disabled (such as turning off search suggestions or having a separate search bar), I could not make it only attempt to go the address rather than searching for it. An error might have highlighted the problem for me.

digit1908
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