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Google Businesses Mozilla The Internet

Outfox, Outsearch With Firefox 55

Posted by timothy from the feel-unlucky dept.
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."
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Outfox, Outsearch With Firefox More

Outfox, Outsearch With Firefox

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  • A little disingenuous (Score:3, Informative)

    by PhysicsGenius ( 565228 ) <<moc.oohay> <ta> <rekees_scisyhp>> on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @07:44AM (#9630404)
    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: (Score:3, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Right, but vi and emacs are very different. Moz and Firefox are virtually identical, as long as you limit yourself to web browsing. It's really more like talking about two different versions of the same product rather than two separate products. A more apt comparison would be Emacs and XEmacs, though Moz and Firefox are much more similar. And of course, Moz is going to be replaced by Firefox et al. Real Soon Now, probably in time for the first Duke Nukem Forever patch, so if you have to choose just one
    • Opera vs Firefox might be vi vs. emacs. Firefox vs. mozilla (vs. Netscape) is more like emacs vs. xemacs.

  • Find As You Type (Score:4, Informative)

    by Thyamine ( 531612 ) <.thyamine. .at. .ofdragons.com.> on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @08:08AM (#9630501) Homepage Journal
    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 (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @08:31AM (#9630663)
      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 (Score:4, Informative)

      by isorox ( 205688 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @09:11AM (#9630980) Homepage Journal
      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

    • Re:Find As You Type (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by raddan ( 519638 )
      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.

      Speaking of driving one's nuts, here's a little joke:

      One day a pirate walks into a bar. He sits down at the counter, shitfing uncomfortably in his seat. The bartender notices this, and then comes to the realization that, in fact, the pirate has a steering wheel shoved down his pants. His curiosity piqued, the bartender asks the pirate, "Hey, why do you have a steering wheel dow

  • Very useful (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Soul-Burn666 ( 574119 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @08:10AM (#9630517) Journal
    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? (Score:4, Informative)

    by TreeHead ( 553584 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @08:20AM (#9630586) Homepage Journal

    ;why no documentation? though i am personally not opposed to searching [google.com] for or reading [webmasterworld.com] 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 [mozilla.org], for instance.

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

    ;treehead

    • Re:is tweaking unsupported? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      preferential.mozdev.org [mozdev.org] is a good source for hidden Mozilla and Firefox preferences.
    • Heh.. I don't like posting links to my own posts (actually I do, lol) but here [slashdot.org]'s a pretty extensive post about features that come or don't come by default in Mozilla and Firefox specifically.

      Mod me down for self-linkage if you want, but I know it helped at least one Firefox newbie go from "this firefox thing is nice" to "woah! this program rocks!"
  • I implemented custom keywords [skamp.net] some time ago, which I use constantly.

  • quicksearch and elinks (Score:5, Informative)

    by BinLadenMyHero ( 688544 ) <binladen@9[ ]ls.org ['hel' in gap]> on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @08:44AM (#9630765) Journal
    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 [9hells.org].
    Tip: symlink it to different names to make your life easier.

  • Trip (Score:2)

    by FrenZon ( 65408 ) *

    If you want to access your quicksearches* even faster, I humbly submit a super early version of Trip [glenmurphy.com], which lets Windows users enter URLs without having to wait for a browser to open, or having to use their mouse to select an input field (which, even if it takes half a second, is half a second too long).

    Impatient people who like to optimise things seem to find it useful, others don't.

    * FireFox doesn't allow launching quicksearches from external apps, whereas IE does, so Trip implements quicksearches its

  • Best search option missing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Chelloveck ( 14643 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @09:09AM (#9630960)

    What? No mention of Googlebar [mozdev.org]? For shame, forevergeek!

  • Nice (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ratbert42 ( 452340 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @09:13AM (#9631003)
    Now can someone point me to an article that will make Firefox 0.9 render Slashdot properly?
  • Display bookmarks in a non-tree format?

    I click bookmarks, scroll down to manage bookmarks, and use that window to use them.
    I have a LOT of bookmarks, with a lot of dirs and sub-dirs. Trying to navigate them from the tool bar is a pain.
    Its also a pain in the manage bookmarks window, but less so.

    Is there any way to display them in a explorer like list mode?

    • Aha, good question! In-browser bookmark managers suck. Try Simpy (see my sig), and all your bookmark, folder, hierarchies and other troubles will be history!

  • It would be nice ... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Jahf ( 21968 )
    If firefox wasn't -quite- so limited on it's pref UI. Mozilla has too many default configuration items and Firefox has too few.

    I know about about:config, but my father will probably never get it (and he's a geek from the old days, he's just tired of fidgeting with hidden widgets).

    A simple entry in the tools/options menu that says "advanced features" which pulled up about:config in a separate window along with better documentation and some tweaks to the UI display for about:config to allow deep help search
    • A simple entry in the tools/options menu that says "advanced features" which pulled up about:config in a separate window along with better documentation and some tweaks to the UI display for about:config to allow deep help searches would be enough.
      I agree about the latter part but it's easy enough to create a bookmark for about:config and put that on the personal toolbar if you like.
      • The point isn't making it easier for people who know about it :) The point is to bring the interface to people who are smart enough to use it but haven't taken the time to learn the weirdnesses.
  • It's nice to see this appear in Free/Open Software, but just like tabbed browsing, Opera had the search thing licked first. And it's a lot easier to choose an alternative search engine (although it isn't infinitely configurable like Firefox). And I love the "right click and choose 'Search' or 'Search with'" model that Opera 7 has.
    • (although it isn't infinitely configurable like Firefox)

      Can you explain what you mean by this? I've not had any trouble adding new search engines, or using them as defaults...
      • Using already-defined search engines? Sure. But defining your own? I don't see any way to do it, and the Opera help system says there isn't (ref.http://www.opera.com/support/search/supsearch .dml?index=351). I run 7.50, which isn't the newest but it's darn close.

        Prove me wrong - I'd love to know how!
        • Sure! Close Opera and edit the search.ini file (closing Opera may not be a requirement, but it often is for other ini files, so it's better to be safe). There are multiple copies of this file strewn about, so which one you edit depends on whether you asked Opera to use the same settings for every user. If so, use the file in programs\Opera, otherwise use the file in your profile's application data\Opera folder.

          I've removed every default item they gave me (except google of course), and added items for IM
  • ... containing bookmarks and *bookmarklets* (Click here [geocities.com]) So select some text and click "Google". Or if you're in the Google search results, click the "@" beside Yahoo to change to the Yahoo search results. Or select some text then click "TTS" to get it read out to you. If you're a Blogger user, click "BlogPage" to create a blog entry for the current page. Click "ACF" to create a Usenet post for alt.comp.freeware. etc.
  • I'm helping out with the Mozilla Keyword Repository. Right now it's a Wiki where you can add your own keywords:
    http://wormus.com/leakytap/Internet/CustomKeywords [wormus.com]

    There's also a version of the list that you can import directly into your bookmarks.

    --Ajay


  • Acutesearch [acutesearch.com] adds this functionality to IE.

    Netcaptor [netcaptor.com] also has this functionality built-in, along with tabbed browsing and pop-up killing.

    Other than wanting good products to thrive and geeks to be happy, I have no interest in these products.

    I, I know, people shouldn't use IE.

  • That feature freaked me out (Score:3, Informative)

    by T.Hobbes ( 101603 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @07:18PM (#9637150)
    The "I'm feeling lucky" feature freaked me out the other day. I'd typed a search string into the address bar, expecting to be taken to a google search results page, but was instead broguht to (what seemed to be) a random webpage. I couldn't find any mention of address bar search functions in the prefs, so I explored some more... and when, after typing "web search" into the bar and being brought to a spyware site [alltheweb.com], I thought my copy of firefox had been infected somehow. Futher tests revealed the truth, but for a short while I thought the gecko safe-harbour had been invaded.
  • Internet Explorer has had the QuickSearch feature ("g foo" searches google for "foo") for several years, although for some bizarre reason they didn't surface it in the UI. You had to download a PowerToy for IE that was simply a UI for editing registry keys that IE was already checking.

    If you still (are forced to) use IE, an easier way to tap into QuickSearch these days is here [protecus.de].

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