Outfox, Outsearch With Firefox

Scrivs writes "This article goes into detail showing users how to effectively utilize the hidden search powers of Firefox. Instead of using the basic search that just sends you to an 'I'm Feeling Lucky' page from Google, you can customize the browser to perform any type of search you want."

Comments

A little disingenuous

[PhysicsGenius]

All of this is core Mozilla functionality that can be done in the stock browser from Mozilla. Why the divisive attitudes on Firefox vs Mozilla anyway? It's like the vi vs emacs of the browser world.

Re:A little disingenuous

[showdax]

There is no "Firefox versus Mozilla" attitude. Both use similar code but have different uses. One's a stand-alone browser, the other is a suite of web-related programs.

The article applies to both, as you said, but is just advertising what is popular.

Find As You Type

[Thyamine]

My favorite feature is being able to type text directly on the webpage and having it search within the webpage for matching text. By default it only searches links, but you can change that by going into Tools -> Options -> Advanced and making sure that Find As You Type is set to not 'search links only'.

Not using a search engine, I know, but it drives my nuts that when I'm forced to use IE I have to use the CTRL-F Find window.

Re:Find As You Type

[Anonymous Coward]

I too cannot live without this. You can also hit '/' (just like vim) before your search string to search all text, and retain the ability to search only links by omitting '/', which is occasionally useful.

Re:Find As You Type

[isorox]

If you normally only want to go to links, which is useful when you aren't using a mouse, you can always find text by pressing "/" before searching

Very useful

[Soul-Burn666]

I've been using most of those features for a quite a while now.

Most important are FindAsYouType and the Keywords.
I've made keywords for:
google, google i'm feeling lucky, dictionary.com, acronymfinder, urbandictionary, wikipedia and goole images.
It's very nice to write something like "img pr0n" and get many pics or "wiki slashdot" to get these precious pieces of information.
Some sites don't have a simple way to search them so for now I they don't have keywords :.

The autocomplete deletion thingy is new for me. I've checked and it works both for URLs completed in the URL bar and for standard autocomplete textboxes.

is tweaking unsupported?

[TreeHead]

;why no documentation? though i am personally not opposed to searching for or reading tips on modifying the browser, i wonder why "tweaks" like this aren't documented in the help.

;are actions such as modifying the chrome or about:config considered "unsupported" by the developers at mozilla? curious...

;i would never have found out about how cool firefox keywords are without this article, for instance.

;ok, i guess mod me down... i didn't have much to say :)

;treehead

Re:is tweaking unsupported?

[Anonymous Coward]

preferential.mozdev.org is a good source for hidden Mozilla and Firefox preferences.

quicksearch and elinks

[BinLadenMyHero]

I have been using these features since phoenix0.5 days.
Quicksearches I use:

fm http://freshmeat.net/search/?q=%s&section=projects
man http://linux.ctyme.com/cgi-swish/linuxdoc.cgi?quer y=%s&sort=swishlastmodified&reverse=on
cpan http://search.cpan.org/search?query=%s&mode=module
w http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%s
e2 http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=%s
dic http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=%s

google:
g http://www.google.com/search?&q=%s
l http://www.google.com/linux?q=%s
img http://images.google.com/images?q=%s
def http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A%s

Also, when on a text console, I made a script to perform similar function: google.sh.
Tip: symlink it to different names to make your life easier.