Who needs the Firefox search bar anyway?
I have been using the Firefox web browser for a long time, from version 1. I remember the days when everyone used Internet Explorer and only web savvy people had Firefox. I remember the days when I would recruit people to join our party, leave the dark side. Real life friends, online friends, random people that we had contacts with, everyone and anyone, we recruited. I love Firefox, it is one of the best things that has happened to the internet.
As you can tell, I am a long time user, but everything I have said so far is irrelevant to the point I am trying to get across here. I believe the search bar is useless. I can’t remember the last time I have used it, could be two months to half a year. You might think that is silly, why would I type google.com or wikipedia.org into the address bar everytime I wanted to search for something, why don’t I just use the search bar. The reason I don’t use the search bar is because there is an easier way to do it.
I suppose most you you have Google as the default search engine in Firefox. Do you switch the search bar to Wikipedia when you want to find something on that? Clicking on the search bar to change the search engine or even type in a query is a waste of time. There is a much more efficient and easier way of doing it. Why wouldn’t you search in half the time it takes you to use the search bar? Why wouldn’t you query Wikipedia in a quarter of the time it takes to use the search bar?
Firefox has something built into it called Quick Searches. This is when you type the search into the address bar and it goes in querys the appropriate page, in the same way it does in the search bar, only its quicker for the user. Typing “google <query>” into the Firefox address bar will do exactly the same as it would if you used Google search in the search bar, just it is much quicker to type that into the address bar of a new window than to click the search bar and type the query. Typing “wp <query>” will do the exact same thing as it would if you searched Wikipedia using the search bar, only much quicker because you don’t have to change the search engine or navigate to the website.
Learning these “shortcuts” will save you a little time searching. But one these shortcuts have become second nature, the search bar becomes useless unless you use a search engine other than Google or search on a different site. For me, I only use Google and Wikipedia, and may others will only use those two sites for searching. I have been trying to find use for the search bar since I no longer need it. I could remove it but then my browser would look odd or I could leave it on Google for aesthetic reasons. I have decided to make it YouTube search. Not that I use YouTube much, let alone search for videos but it gives the search bar a reason to be there, providing functionality I might need that only it can provide. Then again, I can still do without the search bar.
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I use the search bar, but only for Google. For everything else, I use Quick Searches.
I learnt something new today.
Me too!
I didn’t know about quick searches
I’ve used moz. and before that netscape for ages. I then moved onto Firefox and used that for quite awhile, until I got sick and tired of the meory leaks. I loved Opera for several years but after wordpress’s GUI failed in opera I went back to FF (ver 2 I think).
I use the search bar if my hand is on my mouse and is around the are of google, I use quick searches (g for google) if I’m near the url bar of using the keyboard shortcut and I hit home occasionally if it’s quicker. I wouldn’t say the search bar is useless, it’s just another way of completing a task.
Since you’ve made a nice rant, I’d like a share too. I’m a OS X user (2.16ghz Macbook – pretty sweet) and I love firefox. It has all the plugins I’ve ever wanted, it’s fast at browsing and has the gui I want. BUT. Os x has this brillant utility called keychain, which allows you to store usernames and passwords and everything important, so that only you can access it, and you must allow access to applications, and applications can’t attempt to read other usernames and passwords while they are there. It’s a really nifty security feature. Safari uses, and just about every other OS X application I use. Why doesn’t firefox. Firefox just leaves my cookies floating around for any half smart script kiddie to steal if required.
I’m back on safari now, which is slow, doesn’t have groovy plug-ins like firefox and doesn’t work on many sites. Anyway, I hand back to you yum9me, since it is your blog. Oh and opera sucks on os x.
I had nfi about quick searches!!!!!!11!!!!!!11 :O:O:O
I used to use IE 6 on my 800mhz Celeron with 128mb of RAM simply because running Firefox on that thing was wayyyy to slow. Once I got a decent computer (March 2005) I’ve ALWAYS used Firefox and now refuse to use anything else. Opera is terrible IMHO. I do remember that Wikipedia (wp) was a Quick Search in one of the early Firefox versions. At Firefox 2.x it was missing so I dug around looking for it.
Like I said before, I use it for everything but Google. I also don’t like changing search engines in the search bar.
By the way, you can use quick searches in any browser on any OS if you use OpenDNS (www.opendns.com). Sign up for an account and look in your administration panel. Theres the same options there. Rather handy if you use alot of different computers on the same network with different browser settings.
I use the search bar on ipod safari too, manly beause it’s easier then typing 3 or more chars on this. Btw yum9me ipod touch is awesome, now i’m just teasing you.
- theskorm on touch