[HN Gopher] Firefox address bar ___________________________________________________________________ Firefox address bar Author : todsacerdoti Score : 821 points Date : 2023-07-10 13:30 UTC (9 hours ago) (HTM) web link (wiki.tilde.institute) (TXT) w3m dump (wiki.tilde.institute) | doe88 wrote: | This is great, but I can't never remember these shortcuts, or | others useful FF shortcuts, _"? "_ should have been a shortcut to | a help page listing this kind of things, or maybe there is | already such page I'm not aware of. | jahabrewer wrote: | I'd LOVE if there was a way to select the first Firefox Suggest | result immediately instead of having to wade through search | suggestions with down arrow. I _think_ Chrome has this? | kbrosnan wrote: | In the search settings disable "Show search suggestions ahead | of browsing history in address bar results" | Tomte wrote: | Unfortunately, it's not implemented on iOS/iPadOS. | xk_id wrote: | Wait until you find out about Tridactyl [0], which, among a | plethora of other features, can activate a command line where you | can perform all these searches (for example, `:taball` will list | and activate fuzzy search of all opened tabs). | | [0] https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl | account-5 wrote: | I think this is the first time I've seen Firefox mentioned on the | front page of HN and it's being praised instead of slated. | nashashmi wrote: | Firefox is the only browser here that gets praised even for | periodic updates. | | Followed by frequent calls for dumping Chrome in favor of | Firefox. | wazoox wrote: | I still enable the search bar, that you reach with Ctrl+K, while | Ctrl+L sends you to the address bar. | m3at wrote: | Those prefix are great and I use them regularly! | | Though imo the killer feature of FF address bar is simply that | it's tied to a _proper search history_. Unlike chrome (which I | sadly have to use at work), that only keep 90 days of history | (!), making the address bar useless for anything but tabs, recent | searches and as a link to a search engine. I really can 't see an | excuse for that behavior, the sqlite used by chrome is a few mb | at worst. | bugmen0t wrote: | There's also @ for steering the browser to a specific search | engine (e.g., wikipedia search). | | The canonical URL for how the address bar short cuts is | https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/address-bar-autocomplet... | Santosh83 wrote: | This isn't average user friendly. No one except nerds will | remember these symbols. Why not simply make it so that typing | !history ____ will search history, !bookmarks ___ will search | bookmarks and so on? This at least stands a chance of being used | more widely. | lofaszvanitt wrote: | Exactly. Just give us a way to set which results we want first. | paol wrote: | That's why there's a UI affordance for it: look at the bottom | of the suggestions list. | | These are just power user shortcuts. | seaal wrote: | I wish the tags would automatically populate when you used | one of the shortcuts just as they do when you click on the | UI. | dao- wrote: | There should be no difference between the two ways if you | enter a space after the special character. | Liquid_Fire wrote: | This only works if you put the special character in the | beginning and not at the end e.g. if I type "hacker news | %" it still only filters by open tabs, but it doesn't | show the "Tabs x" label (whether I add a space or not). | Which is how I use it 99% of the time, since I only need | to add special characters if it wasn't already finding | what I meant without them. | | (Not that I mind personally, since I'm already familiar | with the feature) | sixothree wrote: | That was my first thought. I will literally never use any of | these simply because I can't remember all of them. !h __, !b | __, or !a __ would be something I could possibly remember. | | EDIT: To be clear I hate being a downer here. But I will never | use these. Nobody I work with will ever use them either. This | is for the 1% of the 1% and a few minor tweaks would make it | actually useful with the default bindings. | Liquid_Fire wrote: | You could use the GUI buttons that appear at the bottom of | the suggestions - they even show the respective special | character in the tooltip. | nashashmi wrote: | MS edge has similar address bar prefixes to limit suggestions to | particular scopes like history, bookmarks, etc. | nness wrote: | "?" is a very useful if your search is being treated as a URL | instead of a search query, i.e. if you need to search for | something which ends in ".io" | timvisee wrote: | Firefox's QuantumBar is amazing stuff! One of the main features | why I'm sticking with the browser. Makes it super comfy. | | Some time back I wrote on it as well, along with some extra | goodies: https://timvisee.com/blog/firefox-tricks-quantumbar/ | jiripospisil wrote: | I don't think I've ever used these modifiers but Firefox's | address bar, Awesomebar, is indeed awesome. Compared to the utter | garbage that is Chromium's Omnibar, I can find any page I've | visited within a few key strokes. Chromium, on the other hand, | almost immediately forgets and you have to go to the actual | History to find it. Even Safari is miles ahead of Chromium in | this regard. I'm still convinced that crippling Omnibar is | Google's way of nudging users to search for the term again (and | thus displaying ads within the search results) instead of just | picking it up from history. | dietr1ch wrote: | For me it's the history of visited addresses. I can navigate | the tree of urls typing very little. It feels like a trie. | coldpie wrote: | > Awesomebar | | Haha! Hello, fellow longtime Firefox user. I also vividly | remember this term in Firefox's marketing a long time ago, but | the most recent results on Google are from circa 2010. Seems | they've largely dropped it as a public-facing term :) | kulahan wrote: | Heh, this was a fun fact to learn. Had no idea they stopped | using it. Thanks for sharing! | millzlane wrote: | It will always be the awesomebar to me. And I'll never stop | calling the hamburger menu, The Hamburger Menu. | archontes wrote: | All I want is tab to search. Actual, identical-to-omnibar tab | to search. | [deleted] | kibwen wrote: | If you have the focus in the address bar and press Tab, | Firefox puts you into search mode (while retaining focus in | the address bar) using your default search engine. Is there | something missing? | archontes wrote: | I'm using Firefox right now. When I highlight in the bar | and press tab, ONLY when the drop-down bar is showing, it | moves the cursor down one to Amazon, which is not my | default search engine, but the first one alphabetically. | | So that doesn't work. | | I also don't want to search my default search engine. I | want tab to search for the panoply of websites that the | omnibox will search. When I start typing ebay, I want "tab | to search ebay". | | I know I can set them up manually (a pain, but might be | worth the investment to avoid the google overlord), | however, I still don't get the "tab to search blah" | function with a keyword. I have to type the keyword exactly | -instead of having tab function as autocomplete- then space | for my query. | | What I _want_ is omnibox tab to search. | kibwen wrote: | _> When I start typing ebay, I want "tab to search | ebay"._ | | You can configure Firefox to do this with a single | checkbox. Go to Settings, click Privacy & Security on the | side, go down to the Address Bar section, and make sure | that "Search engines" is selected. | | When I do that, I can click in the address bar (which | brings up the drop-down), type "ebay", and then you'll | see "Search with eBay" appear below in the drop-down, and | then a single Tab puts it into eBay search mode. | Vinnl wrote: | I think that's just because the ebay search engine is | installed by default? They want this to work for any site | with a search engine they've ever visited - at least, | that's how it works in Chrome, IIRC. | aftbit wrote: | I also remember missing that feature dearly when I | switched from Chrome to Firefox. However, some time in | the intervening decade, they've actually added that to | Firefox! I can type "<Ctrl-L>ebay<TAB>esp32<ENTER>" and I | end up on the eBay search page for "esp32". Perhaps there | is a setting or about:config option that needs to be | toggled? Many of Firefox's best features are thusly | hidden. | marcosdumay wrote: | Actual search or autofill segment? | | Autofill segment would be really useful, and no modern thing | seem to be able to do it. But tab to search doesn't look very | useful to me. | peppermint_gum wrote: | > Even Safari is miles ahead of Chromium in this regard. | | I hate Safari's address bar. One visit to a mistyped address | can ruin your suggestions forever, that typoed URL will be | always preferred over the correct one. | | Firefox's address bar is indeed great. Always works flawlessly. | mitchell209 wrote: | This was my biggest gripe when I used a MacBook 6 years ago. | You're telling me this issue still persists in current | versions of Safari? Ridiculous. | dpacmittal wrote: | I agree, Firefox address bar is miles ahead of any other | browser. I just hope they don't mess it up in the name of UX | pbhjpbhj wrote: | As we speak the Mozilla CEO, on reading this comment, is | probably saying "see, they love our innovative addressbar; so | we should focus innovation efforts entirely on that, make it | entirely new, ... nothing stays the same ... we could make it | vertical!" ... | sdfghswe wrote: | Same here. I have a lot of bookmarks, and the bar finds it. | darkwater wrote: | Totally agree. I basically don't use bookmarks at all because | the super awesome FF fuzzy search in the bar just works with my | mental model (i.e. I recall some letters/words of what I want, | and it usually just appears there) | _shantaram wrote: | 100%, I'm the same way. The Firefox address bar is truly a | work of art. I used to worry that I was just crazy whenever I | tried Chrome and found the experience so inferior, because | how much variation could there be in fuzzy search? tons, | apparently. | doodlesdev wrote: | Using bookmarks males it even better though, as they appear | above the other suggestions. I've been adding quite a lot of | websites I visit to bookmarks just because of this. It's also | awesome because I can search for the name of the bookmark, so | for instance on ProtonMail where I have more than one account | (yes I use the webmail, I'm sorry) I can just search for | "personal mail" or "work mail" and I get the URL that sends | me to the inbox _in the correct account_ which is pretty | awesome. | kristiandupont wrote: | This was always the most baffeling thing to me -- how could | _google_ be so bad at search? But the answer, I suspect, is | simple: they want you to make a new google search rather than | jump straight to the site. | diroussel wrote: | How can we get people to do more searches? | | Answer: don't show anymore than three history suggestion | items and provide no way to increase it | [deleted] | cubefox wrote: | I remember the Opera ~9 URL bar did actually search the whole | browser history (not just website url + title), which seemed | pretty incredible at the time. Maybe it was a bit overkill | though. | rkangel wrote: | Also Chrome has a hard limit on the length of history that | it'll store and I regularly want things that I saw more than 90 | days ago. Firefox seems to be longer. | capableweb wrote: | > Firefox seems to be longer. | | Absolutely. At the current computer I'm at, I last visited | https://github.com/austinhuang0131/instagrabber in May 2020, | and typing either "insta" or "austin" in the addressbar still | shows that URL as a suggested address. | iggldiggl wrote: | Though for the full value I personally really also need | some sort of interface that can show _individual_ page | visits in order to answer the question "What other pages | did I visit at that point in time?" (sometimes I don't | remember the right keywords to find a certain page again, | but only some other page I visited during the same browsing | session). The built-in history view is only of limited | value here, because it always only shows the most-recent | visit, so as soon as you visit a page again, it moves to | the front of the list again and loses its original place | and history context. | | As usual, there used to be an add-on for that, which was | subsequently broken by the move to webextensions (and even | if somebody wanted to rewrite it, the webextension API | doesn't cater for its full functionality). Thankfully some | kind soul has maintained a version hacked to still work | even on a current Firefox | (https://github.com/xiaoxiaoflood/firefox- | scripts/tree/master...). | nmridul wrote: | One reason why I prefer to use firefox at work. I can type some | part of the title and it finds the Jira tickets/ confluence | link easily from my history. Chrome would take me to search | page and the search returns nothing since it cannot find | anything from the locally hosted jira/confluence. | lousken wrote: | The biggest annoyance for me with firefox is that there is no | modifier to search across tabs in multiple containers. If I have | 400 tabs open with temporary containers extension, it renders | this search feature useless. | doodlesdev wrote: | You can search across tabs using the tab search in the top | right corner though (an arrow pointing down). There might be a | shortcut for it but I'm not aware of any. | | Although if you are really opening 400 tabs at once I'd | recommend either tree-style tabs or rethinking your life | choices lol. | ringer wrote: | > You can search across tabs using the tab search in the top | right corner though (an arrow pointing down). | | Which uses the same broken stuff, so you can't actually | search. Check this ticket: | https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1479858 | | Btw, the arrow icon cannot be moved from the tabs bar, | annoying because I completely hide this bar, but sometimes it | would be useful to have this menu. | booleandilemma wrote: | _If I have 400 tabs open_ | | I think I found your problem. | tiffanyh wrote: | Ever since browsers made the URL bar a search bar, it really | messes with "naked TLD's" like https://ai | vladxyz wrote: | In firefox you can split the url bar from the search bar, to | make the intent explicit. Additionally, you can set | _browser.fixup.dns_first_for_single_words_ to _true_ in | _about:config_ , after which typing _ai_ in the url bar will | offer to "visit" _http://ai/_ as the default option. | penguin_booze wrote: | Very annoying indeed. I had to force myself to type a trailing | / so "naked TLDs" are resolved correctly. | mpawelski wrote: | I've been using % for years for switching to open tabs that I | lost among many other opened tabs and windows. | | Pro tip: you can also append % at the end to have the same result | (it wasn't always like that, which used to be super annoying if | you forgot to type it at beginning). | guptarohit wrote: | I'm curious if we have something similar for chromium based | browsers? | sam_goody wrote: | It used to be that search and address were two different fields | in the browser UI. That helped - if typed in the address bar, you | were probably looking for something in an address [so if you | typed potato, it could search for a url in your local history | with the word potato], and not for something in a web page. | | Then Google realized you could combine the two; this makes it | less likely you will use a competing search, gives you more | places to show ads (as more things qualify as search) and most | importantly - legitimizes tracking every page you open - as you | did a web search for the URL! | | Unfortunately, Chrome owns the web, and Mozilla copies everything | they do. Especially when they are FF's main source of income. | | IMO, the old system was more accurate _and_ more private. The | search bar is for web searches. | marccoup wrote: | Firefox does have a setting to add the search bar back if | that's your jam, you can turn off address bar search | suggestions in the settings too. | | If you turn off address bar search suggestions then the address | bar will still search anything you enter that's not a url on | your chosen default search engine though. You might be able to | turn off that behaviour in about:config | diroussel wrote: | This is what I do for work. Most of the pages I go to are not | on the open internet. And I usually want to go to a wiki page | I've been to before or to a book mark. If I actually want to | search i use the search box. But for me the url bar is for | editing and finding urls. | cassepipe wrote: | Not only that but the shortcuts haven't changed as Ctrl + L | puts you in the adress bar and Ctrl+K sets you up for a | search with the default engine in the adress bar | wincy wrote: | Firefox updated the other day and started putting ads into my | address bar when I search for stuff. "Firefox Sponsored | Suggestions" or some other such nonsense. I had to look up how to | disable it. At least I could. | | I'm noticing the Google Omnibar will pop up logos and names of | companies when I search for stuff which I wish I could disable. | But I've found no way to do so. It's just distracting and | jarring. | [deleted] | shadytrees wrote: | Apropos of nothing, except that it shows off that Firefox | implements the OpenSearch spec correctly, here's a Wordle clone | my friend Nolen built in Firefox's address bar: | | https://eieio.games/nonsense/implementing-wordle-in-the-fire... | | I hope it brings you the five minutes of delight that it brought | me | TeMPOraL wrote: | Parade, here comes the rain. I hate who I've become these days, | only ever complaining about stuff, but here we go: | | I find "^history search" to be actually and _annoyingly_ useless | because Firefox, like Chrome and seemingly every other browser, | has unreliable, short-living browsing history. The times where I | find myself trying to use the "^-search" in Firefox are always | just a little bit after whatever I was searching for fell out of | history retention window. The annoyance part is that my every | failed attempt at using "^-search" is another reminder that | browser vendors seem to want to get rid of browsing history | entirely. | | The rest of those tools, they work for me. Sometimes. "%tab- | search" and "#title-search" seem to be negatively affected by | what the article describes as "some sort of smart guess on what | you type there", and overall I had them fail to find the exact | tab/page I had open enough times, that I don't trust them. | | "+tag search" - that's a new one for me, I didn't know it | existed. I only recently discovered you can add tags to | bookmarks, and those tags do complete for "unqualified" queries | (i.e. just starting to type in the address bar) with some | priority, and are displayed nicely. | aftbit wrote: | What do you mean by "history retention window"? My Firefox | instance has history dating back to 2016 at least... | asadotzler wrote: | You don't surf that much then. Kidding. It's not date based, | but volume based and I have high volume so a smaller time | window. | TeMPOraL wrote: | Mine doesn't, and it's not because I deleted it or anything. | My current Fx history seems to go back some unspecified time | over 6 months. | | Actually I started looking and found the hidden history | manager view, which allowed me to at least view history as a | table that can be sorted. It seems that my history goes back | to 2021, which is more than I thought but much less than it | should. And that's by "Most Recent Visit" column. There are | two more hidden columns that can be enabled, "Added" and | "Last Modified", but both have no values for any entry in | history. | | As for search - I picked a history entry at random (literally | dragged the scroll bar 2/3 of the way down and focused on | first line that caught my attention), and attempted to find | it in the address bar using "^-search" with words taken | directly from the page title. The entry I was looking for | showed only on the third attempt, and then it took two more | before it stopped disappearing when I typed in the next word | from its title. This suggests some kind of slow, async | background search is going on - which would explain why it | never worked for me: I never expected something like this | could take more than an instant, especially without any | indicator saying "still searching" or whatever. | | So I guess maybe it "works", it's just slow enough to be | useless. | phatfish wrote: | I _think_ linking to a Firefox account will truncate your | local history to the maximum retention of Firefox Sync, | which is 1 year or a size limit. It 's pretty lame if that | is the behaviour. | | I seem to get variable retentions between computers. For | instance i have FF on a work laptop with sync blocked, and | have purple links and history from 6+ years ago. | | FF on my personal machines which have been synced at one | time or another certainly don't have 6 years of history. | DangerousPie wrote: | Interesting. I use ^history all the time and it has been | working extremely well for me. It's the number one thing I miss | every time I use Chrome. | jacobsenscott wrote: | On chrome - Command-Y searches history. However typing in the | address bar searches your history, open tabs, etc all at | once. That's all I ever use. I get pretty much everywhere in | 3 or 4 keystrokes. | globular-toast wrote: | I've used Firefox for over two decades at this point. I didn't | know about these modifiers and I find that pretty awesome. For | years I've had a few of my own quick searches set up, for example | "wp thing" will take me to the Wikipedia page for "thing". | | I realised recently I've taken the Firefox address bar for | granted. I wasn't a big fan when it moved from a "simple" address | bar. I still use a separate search bar and disable searching from | the address bar in case I accidentally submit a search I didn't | intend to. | | But recently I was using Safari on an iPad and couldn't believe | how terrible it was. It couldn't even remember pages I'd visited | from a couple of days ago. I do bookmark things in Firefox but | I've taken for granted being able to recall pages I've browsed | months, maybe even years, ago from the address bar. How do people | live without this?! | TheArcane wrote: | As someone who loves Multi-Account Containers, as long as this | bug[1] isn't fixed, the address bar is severely handicapped for | me | | [1]: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1479858 | elwell wrote: | In Chrome, prefix with '?' to search Google instead of | autocompleting. | aloisdg wrote: | Nice usage of watercss | seren wrote: | I love them, use them every day on desktop and I don't understand | why it does not work on mobile | rsapkf wrote: | The latest Firefox mobile update added a dropdown to the | address bar for switching search engines and searching through | history/bookmarks/tabs easily. | seren wrote: | Nice, I hadn't seen it, thanks ! | LoganDark wrote: | Doesn't the mobile port use a completely different user | interface implementation, from scratch? Makes sense that they | might not have gotten to all the advanced convenience features | of desktop yet. | nothingeasy wrote: | Yes, the mobile address bar is a completely different | implementation from the desktop version. | poorman wrote: | I really wish there was an easy way to search text in all open | tabs on Chrome / Brave. | NikkiA wrote: | Page titles (#) and web addresses ($) don't seem to work for me, | but then they sound like they should be modifiers to the other | search modifiers. | | It should probably be noted that ^headphones like they suggest | doesn't actually work, over here it only works with ^ headphones, | since the ^ doesn't get applied until I press space and then the | start of the address bar changes to "History" with a 'x' close | option. | seaal wrote: | A subset of the most personally useful modifiers work on Edge and | I prefer the UI when using these in Edge. | | ^ to search for matches in your browsing history. | | * to search for matches in your bookmarks. | | ? to search your search engine. | tonylemesmer wrote: | My favourite find of the past 12 months is Ctrl+L which gives the | address bar focus so you can begin typing. | ris58h wrote: | It's not possible to focus back which is a bummer. | kbrosnan wrote: | You can use F6 to focus the address bar. With it focused F6 | will return focus to web content. | arrakeen wrote: | i am stunned that folks didn't know about this since i've been | using this shortcut hundreds of times a day for at least 20 | years. i guess the moral of the story is that browser vendors | really need to make it easier to discover the useful features | that are buried in documentation | quikoa wrote: | I'm using alt+d what I like about that shortcut is that's on | the left side and the keys are close to each other. | aftbit wrote: | Don't forget about Ctrl-Enter which converts <word> to | http://www.<word>.com | sphars wrote: | Huh, didn't know about Ctrl+L, I've always used Alt+D for | address bar focus. | fivre wrote: | Alt-d is superior, since it's a left-hand shortcut! | | Even though the keys _are_ there I have no muscle memory for | the modifiers on my right hand. | tonylemesmer wrote: | wow - now we have 3 shortcuts for the same thing! | asadotzler wrote: | Alt D (from IE) also works. Ctrl L is Netscape legacy. | thesuitonym wrote: | FYI, CTRL+L actually works in a lot of contexts. Chrome, | Windows Explorer, Dolphin, Slack, and probably many others! | guptarohit wrote: | Welcome to the club! | | The day I knew about it and till know I don't think I ever | clicked in search bar to search. | | This shortcut is very helpful! | | In similar context, Ctrl+w for closing tab. | nashashmi wrote: | Alt F4 is for duplicating the window with all of its tabs. /s | nashashmi wrote: | Kids, never learn keyboard shortcuts from strangers in the | internet | 369548684892826 wrote: | Also ctrl-shift-t to undo close tab | penguin_booze wrote: | Some browser-based editors will helpfully offer Vim bindings | for editing, without exhaustively emulating _all_ bindings. | Of course, once in the flow of editing, I type Ctrl+W to | delete a word, and voila, the tab closes! | benplumley wrote: | F6 works too, and you can press it again to unfocus it (TIL) | chimprich wrote: | > and you can press it again to unfocus it | | That is useful! Wonder why Ctrl-l and alt-d don't work like | that? | fivre wrote: | Alt-d is, AFAIK, equivalent to a menubar shortcut (like | Alt-f) that just happens to go to not quite a menu. None of | the others close on repeat, so it doesn't either. UX | consistency, though maybe the sort that doesn't matter as | much as usual. | KSecurityK wrote: | While doing a search in search engine you can use `/` to go to | the search bar, this also works in YouTube. | | In Firefox use this for quick find on the page | vladxyz wrote: | One finger over, and you've got Ctrl+K to focus search bar (if | you have it enabled. Becomes default-search-engine-search in | the address bar, if not). | ngc6677 wrote: | There is also client side configuration possible with | https://github.com/internet4000/find | Liam2010 wrote: | [flagged] | amelius wrote: | I personally like Amazon's approach, where there is a dropdown | menu in front of the search bar where you can select if you want | to search in "Books", "Electronics", etc. | pieter_mj wrote: | Am I the only one to accidentally paste my main firefox password | into the address bar and having it searched by google? | Liam2010 wrote: | [dead] | pmontra wrote: | 12. about:performance to view how much each tab consumes power | and memory, in real time, jump to it and do something. It works | on Android too. | | Useful for normal navigation and in development when under some | circumstances one of our apps enter some CPU busy loop. I got a | very busy websocket recently, when the user session expires. | perihelions wrote: | The killer feature is that you can extend this with your own | macros. E.g. if you want the address bar to recognize "hn " as a | prefix keyword, and redirect "hn firefox address bar" to, say, | Algolia -- you simply create a bookmark with "Keyword": "hn" and | "URL": "https://hn.algolia.com/?q=%s" (not actually a URL, don't | click on it) - %s indicating where the macro parameter | substitutes. Then "hn firefox address bar" macroexpands to | | https://hn.algolia.com/?q=firefox%20address%20bar | johnnyworker wrote: | Or just right-click the input field, and if the browser | recognizes it as a search field (they're good at it by default, | but you can implement https://github.com/dewitt/opensearch to | make extra sure), you'll get an option to create a search from | it, with a keyword of your choosing (haven't tried Safari). | raybb wrote: | I implemented it for OpenLibrary | (https://github.com/internetarchive/openlibrary/pull/5104) | and it was surprisingly easy and works well! | cubefox wrote: | At least at some point in the past, this method had the | advantage of working also with POST searches, while the | manual insertion of %s works only with GET. | gregsadetsky wrote: | The same is available in Chrome. I made a list of shortcuts I | use here [0] -- copying a few favorites below: | shortcut: "aw", lets you type: "aw s3", "aw iam", etc. | https://console.aws.amazon.com/%s shortcut: "amzn", | searches the retail side | https://www.amazon.com/s/?field-keywords=%s | shortcut: "gm", searches through gmail (change the 0 if you use | multiple accounts) | https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/%s | shortcut: "maps", searches google maps | https://www.google.com/maps/search/%s/ shortcut: | "img", searches google images | https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=%s | shortcut: "wp", goes directly to the article if it exists | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%s shortcut: "yt", | searches youtube | https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s | | [0] https://github.com/gregsadetsky/custom-search-engines | cpleppert wrote: | You can also use a duckduckgo query like ! site:site.com | query. That is more reliable when using something like | wikipedia when you aren't sure of the exact title and don't | have to type it all out. | robbyking wrote: | And IIRC, Chrome copied this from Opera. It's a shame Opera | never found its audience (or more specifically, a revenue | stream), they pioneered a lot of browser features that we | consider to be standard these days, like tabs and support for | extensions. | tomphoolery wrote: | is it really a "shame"? opera is the oldest successful | browser of all time. | kbenson wrote: | It's been around in some form in most major browsers for | decades. I remember Creating custom search entries in | Firefox (or was it Phoenix still at that point?) in the | early 2000's. | jessriedel wrote: | My list: | | Aliexpress alternativeto.net Amazon Apple AppStore ArXiv Bing | Video BookFinder ISBN DHL Tracking Number DOI Resolver | duckduckgo.com ebay.com Facebook HackerNews (Angolia search) | ISBN Search Library Genesis MathOverflow | Physics.StackExchange Scholarpedia Sci-Hub (DOI) SciRate | (arXiv) Scite.ai Dictionary.com Thesaurus.com Tripadvisor.com | Twitter Urban Dictionary Walmart Wayback Machine Wikipedia | Wolfram Alpha Weather Underground Yelp YouTube Video Search | images.google.com scholar.google.com maps.google.com | news.google.com scholar.google.com video.google.com | | I have about half of these memorized enough to use regularly. | momothereal wrote: | My company intranet has a shortcut/URN website that we all | configure as "go", so "go home", "go paystubs", etc. Anyone | can create URNs. No more stale bookmarks when the HR system | keeps changing. Very useful! | anilit99 wrote: | Chase? | momothereal wrote: | No but I'm sure many big orgs to this! Much easier than | updating a home page with 1000+ links | pjot wrote: | This is a feature in Chrome as well! | | https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95426 | viewtransform wrote: | Often times during a Teams meeting someone would wonder who had | filed this ticket and I would "Control-L p Jose Smith" to | instantly bring up the org chart for Jose Smith. People were | amazed. | | The Control-L/Command-L(mac) to focus the url bar. p is the | keyword set to search the internal company org chart. | | Another useful Firefox feature is to right click, Take | Screenshot, and save the full web page rendered as you see it | as an image. This is useful for those internal webpages with | tables and fancy javascript rendered widgets that never | properly render to pdf when saving the page. | kevincox wrote: | Yup, I use this all the time. `d` is for searching my favourite | D&D reference, `i` is for IMDB, `p` is for image search, `v` is | for GIF search... | | It is also great for keyword-based bookmarklets. | 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: | This is a very old feature that (IIRC) all browsers copied that | dates back to at least Microsoft Internet Explorer. I also | recall people marketed it as a gimmick and came up with some | silly names for it, e.g., "shortcuts". (I will try to find the | originating browser and date it was introduced unless someone | here beats me to it.) | | Even today, Chrome presumptuously calls this macro expansion | "site search". | | I use it to access static pages. For example, I have local | httpd's serving local pages on localhost addresses. One is a | "clipboard" that I use in Chromebook "Guest" mode to output | text from Chrome to a file descriptor, e.g., stdout or a file | under /usr/local. This enables me to use UNIX utilities to | process text from Chrome. (Chromebooks attempt to limit Chrome | user access to the filesystem to a folder that the user can | only access by using Chrome.) | | For example, given the macro "https://127.0.0.8/%s.html", when | I type "clip" in the address bar, the browser navigates to a | local page https://127.0.0.8/clip.html | | This page is an HTML form with a textarea where I can paste | text that I want to output to a file descriptor, e.g., stdout | or a file under /usr/local. | | Another example is a static page that is a list of web search | results from various search engines. These results pages are | generated by a command line web search system I created using | only standard UNIX utilities. | | A final example is that I use "site search" to quickly navigate | to chrome://settings pages with a single key, e.g., | chrome://settings/clearBrowserData, chrome://settings/siteData, | chrome://settings/content/all, or | chrome://settings/searchEngines. | | 1. I find this label comical as I'm not a "developer". I'm just | a computer user trying to work around problems caused by ad- | supported "tech" companies in the comparitively rare instances | I have to use one of their hopelessly complex graphical web | browsers. | a_c wrote: | I have been using duckduckgo's bang feature for searching a | particular site. e.g. !hn to search on here, !w on wiki and !g | back to google is the result from ddg looks off. | naturalpb wrote: | I love DDG's bangs. If I want to see Google results, I use !s | for Startpage instead. It's Google results through | Startpage's search proxy. | asadotzler wrote: | I wrote all about this kind of thing back in 2001 or so | | https://www-archive.mozilla.org/docs/end-user/keywords.html | FalconSensei wrote: | this is just the search engines feature on chrome... | bmacho wrote: | Similarly you can run javascript programs on a site with a | parameter from the url bar, if you want. For example you can | make a bookmark with the URL javascript: | document.body.innerHTML = "%s" + document.body.innerHTML | | and add a keyword @addBefore and it will work. (Useless | example, but it probably shows where and how the javascript | runs.) | bshacklett wrote: | Now that's awesome. Bookmarklets have felt largely useless to | me since I got rid of the bookmarks bar outside of new tabs. | This might make them useful again. | rascul wrote: | I use this often. I just wish there was a way to escape the | keyword. Like for example if I wanted to do a web search for | "hn firefox address bar" I have to click the correct search | engine with my mouse. Maybe there's a method I'm not aware of. | notRobot wrote: | I think you can have the keywords begin with a # or a @ or a | ! (a la DDG bangs). | [deleted] | usea wrote: | you can make another keyword search for your search engine, | and use that instead of a naked search. like: "g hn firefox | address bar" | velut wrote: | You can press Ctrl+K or type a `?` before the search query | and Firefox will use your default search engine without | expanding the bookmark macro. | rascul wrote: | I notice that ? is mentioned in the submitted article, but | I didn't get what you said from it. Regardless, ? is | apparently what I needed to solve my problem. Thanks! | jimmaswell wrote: | Mobile used to have this too until they ruined it. And now they | won't add it back with no valid justification. | atomlib wrote: | This is Firefox's best kept secret. | | To this day I cannot fathom anyone willingly switching from | Firefox to Chrome/Edge/any other Chromium-based browser. There | are so many tiny features that are useful at least to myself, | while a minor JavaScript performance advantage isn't something | that important in the grand scale of things. | baby wrote: | And then there's tree style tabs. But actually I moved to | Chrome due to how many issues I ran into with tree style tabs | due to firefox not letting do its thing | kenmacd wrote: | Well, in case you decide to move back, give Sidebery a try. | I switched a while back haven't had any issues. | eitland wrote: | So, if I understood you correct, you had issues with TST | and instead of disabling TST, you went for Chrome? | fn-mote wrote: | They want a good tab manager... so they changed because | the one they tried for Firefox did not work. | eitland wrote: | Over to Chrome that - as far as I have found - is worse | off than Firefox in all possible ways when it comes to | tab management? | | Have I missed something? | raytube wrote: | [dead] | sucralose wrote: | Custom bookmark / search engine functionality is easy to | replicate on Linux with a few shell scripts, though. | | I use Brave and yet use some complex search engines such as | making POST requests to APIs based on the search input and | telling the browser to open a URL provided in the API's HTTP | response. | asadotzler wrote: | I've been trying to tell people about this for over two | decades, literally, https://www-archive.mozilla.org/docs/end- | user/keywords.html | pbreit wrote: | Chrome manages to do this without a command character. Much | better UX. | tzot wrote: | Firefox without a command character searches everywhere; | you use a command character to restrict your search to a | specific category (history, bookmarks, open tabs etc). | | Assumably Chromes does the same (ie without some prefix | searches everywhere, with some prefix --or keypress-- | searches in a specific category). If Chrome doesn't do | that, then Firefox's is the much better UX, otherwise | they're equivalent. | pbhjpbhj wrote: | Not really, Chrome-based browsers have search keywords too. | | What I would like most on the Chrome-based browser I have to | use at work is history (^ keywords) and bookmark searching (# | tag keywords, or * bookmark keywords) using "awesomebar" | operators that Firefox has. | | I'd really really like it if a form of search keywords could | be used for forms that don't work as GET requests. | Neff wrote: | Funny enough, I just posted on Mastodon looking for | recommendations of other browsers to try. | | While I love the flexibility and openness that Firefox | brings, there is a resource issue for me on my macbook pro. I | have to spend a lot of time in Google Meets for work, and | video conferencing via Firefox seems to redline the | computer... It sounds like a jet engine and I wind up thermal | throttling to the point that my machine becomes completely | unresponsive. | | I'd love to stay with Firefox - especially for the cross- | device tab sharing and search - but the need for something | stable is superseding my want to use a non-Google browser. | irae wrote: | I used Safari for years and it is so easy to open Chrome | just for Google Meet. It is way less annoying than one | would imagine | thesuitonym wrote: | I wonder if Google would have any vested interest in making | Meets a bad experience in Firefox... No, it must be Firefox | that's wrong! | raytube wrote: | [dead] | paintballboi07 wrote: | Have you tried disabling hardware acceleration? | drozycki wrote: | Chrome would auto install site specific search in its initial | beta release in September 2008. The ability to set your own | keywords came soon after. https://lifehacker.com/enable- | chromes-best-features-in-firef... | matheusmoreira wrote: | Firefox is increasingly unfriendly to power users. Wouldn't | surprise me if they got rid of this feature someday because | they have statistics showing few people use it. | sbjs wrote: | And rightfully so. Why maintain a feature for a small | minority? Let them fork and maintain it themselves. | WastingMyTime89 wrote: | The danger of this is obvious. | | Everyone is there for a different minority used feature. | By caring only about the feature used by the majority, | you are actually satisfying no one. | | That's why product managers use persona on top of | metrics. Nice products have niche features and some kind | of personality. You don't want to overfocus on them but | stripping them all is a losing move. | mcpackieh wrote: | Firefox would have no users at all if Mozilla abandon us | nerds and power users who all rely a slightly different | set of Firefox's obscure features. If Mozilla were smart, | they would embrace us instead of wishing we were more | like normal users (if we were, we'd be using chrome | already!) | zo1 wrote: | "WTF" is there to maintain in the feature anyways? If | it's such a bloated mess that this kind of small feature | causes maintenance issues and a lot of effort to include | in subsequent releases, then maybe it is time for Firefox | to fail. | | Sigh, I've been using Firefox for almost 2 decades, and | this is the first I've heard of this feature. | [deleted] | HumblyTossed wrote: | Switching will accelerate this. | marcosdumay wrote: | Firefox is trending into the unfriendliness of Chrome and | the other mainstream browsers. | | That irritating and horrible; but until they follow that | trend to conclusion, it's not a reason to switch at all. | wartijn_ wrote: | You can do this in Chromium as well. So it might be | Chromium's best kept secret too. | NikkiA wrote: | As far as I know, you can do it in all major browsers | (probably not safari though) | pivo wrote: | There's a plugin that does this for Safari: | https://apps.apple.com/app/keyword-search/id1558453954 | sxg wrote: | You can do it in Raycast along with a lot of other | shortcuts outside of web browsers. I actually like it | better through Raycast because it acts as a universal | search, app launcher, calculator, 1Password interface, | etc. that's always available and not dependent on a | browser. | jabroni_salad wrote: | yep, just hit up 'manage search engines' and add a | shortcut. I use this to navigate to servicenow documents | when someone IMs me their number, one of my most used | workflow helpers. https://<your | servicenow base | url>/text_search_exact_match.do?sysparm_search=%s | ghostpepper wrote: | How does one search open tabs in Chrome? | cubefox wrote: | I think he meant the custom website keyword search. | wartijn_ wrote: | I did mean that, but it is possible to search for tabs, | history, or bookmarks by starting your search with an @. | E.g. `@tabs ycombinator` | cpleppert wrote: | This bookmarklet will work: (function () | { let sel = window.getSelection(); let Qr; if (sel && | sel.toString().length > 0) {Qr=sel.toString()} else | {Qr=prompt('Search Site for','');} let | hna=window.location.hostname; if(Qr) { location.href='ht | tp://www.google.com/search?&q=site:'+encodeURIComponent(h | na)+'+'+escape(Qr) }})(); | | You can attach to a keyboard shortcut with a launcher or | applescript. | wartijn_ wrote: | By starting your search with "@tabs" You can change that | behavior in the settings | myfonj wrote: | Interestingly, in Microsoft Edge, entering `%` does the | same as typing `@tabs <tab>`. And `^` as `@history`. | WXLCKNO wrote: | Ctrl+shift+a or click that little arrow at the top right | of the window and you can search there. | | I also just saw this | https://blog.google/products/chrome/search-your-tabs- | bookmar... | | I think I like the shorter Firefox version better but | this is maybe easier to remember at first | mucle6 wrote: | I thought I was a power user.... | zo1 wrote: | Non power users would use this more if the docs, | marketing and promotion of it was prominent and talked | about (or made to look "sexy" for lack of a better word). | I think what we're seeing is that the "UX" folk have | hijacked the conversation and made it so that it is the | only expression of the capabilities an app has for user | interaction. | | I'm sitting here, recalling all my chats and meetings and | workshops with UX folk, and not once can I recall the | topic of keyboard shortcuts or tab sequence being brought | up. It was all about color, branding, spacing, user flow, | "journeys", "experience", conversion funnels, and all | things visual. | pbhjpbhj wrote: | Ctrl+Shift+A works in Edge too, they don't have the caret | as a search dialog handle though. TIL. Includes recently | closed tabs too. | shscs911 wrote: | Ctrl+Shift+A | IceSentry wrote: | I use vivaldi because of the tab stack feature and until | firefox gets support for something close to it I just can't | switch. I tried to browse the web without it but I always | come back to vivaldi. I have a tab hoarding problem and it's | the only browser that actually makes helps me manage it. | aldanor wrote: | I use Firefox mainly because of TreeStyleTab which lets me | have 1k-2k tabs with no problem. Beats all other vertical | tab options I've seen so far in other browsers | nine_k wrote: | Another great thing that only seem to exist for Firefox is | Tree Style Tab [1] and a bunch of plugins around it. It | completely changes the way I browse. | | There is an honest but much, much more limited attempt top | bring a something similar to Chromium: [2]. | | [1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree- | style-ta... | | [2]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tree-style- | tab/oic... | AlecSchueler wrote: | This thread really makes me miss old | vimperator/pentadactyl., | MetallicCloud wrote: | Is there a good way to hide the top tabs without getting | into barely supported config files? | | I like TST, but I gave up on it because I could never get | the top tabs hidden correctly, and all the information I | could find on the internet was different levels of out of | date. | wlesieutre wrote: | I see a sibling comment posted a link to some tab bar | hiding CSS, but having gone though the same "different | levels of out of date" problem myself I'll add my own | solution that I'm currently using in Firefox 114 on | Windows 11. Not perfectly space efficient, but avoids | some issues with totally hiding the window titlebar, | since I still wanted to keep the minimize/maximize/close | controls up there. | | Some of this may be platform specific to Windows (can't | speak to window management buttons on other platforms), | but hopefully it helps if anyone in this thread needs it | or lands here later from search results: | /* Hide the tabs within TabsToolbar*/ .toolbar- | items { display: none; } /* | Make the min/max/close buttons align to the right*/ | #TabsToolbar { display: flex; flex- | direction: row-reverse; } /* Hide the | titlebar spacers, which push the buttons away from the | corner */ .titlebar-spacer { display: | none; } /* Hide the sidebar header */ | #sidebar-header { display: none; } | | Stupid that this sort of fiddling is required when other | browsers (like Edge and Brave) are doing native sidebar | tabs, but I do like how compact Firefox's can be, plus | being a tree instead of a flat list. | | Enabling userChrome.css files and finding where to put it | is left as an exercise to the reader. | nine_k wrote: | Indeed. Works for me, but I'd love it to be an | about:config setting for power users, or maybe even a | View menu item. | nine_k wrote: | Finding the profile directory is as easy as opening | about:support (also available via the Help menu). | wlesieutre wrote: | IIRC there's also a config flag you need to set, | otherwise it won't load the userchrome file. I forget the | details, it's been a while since I set this up. | velut wrote: | I don't think so. I use Sidebery and their recommended | approach is to edit userChrome.css. It's not too bad and | works well. See | https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery/wiki/Firefox-Styles- | Snipp.... | Dalewyn wrote: | >a minor JavaScript performance advantage | | Consider just how many layers of JavaShit webdevs want to | slap down on their websites these days, that "minor" | performance difference adds up. Death by a thousand cuts, | basically. | velut wrote: | This is one of my favorite features that I use daily. | | I use the URL | "https://www.google.com/search?q=site:ycombinator.com+%s" to | search content from HN, and | "https://www.google.com/search?q=site:reddit.com+%s" to search | on Reddit. I also have "https://www.npmjs.com/package/%s" to | directly go to a package page on npm. | gnomespaceship wrote: | Btw if you also use DuckDuckGo, you can start your search | with "!hn" and "!r" bangs: https://duckduckgo.com/bangs | ajot wrote: | And you can go full circle, adding DDG's bangs as bookmark | keywords on Firefox! | | https://www.ghacks.net/2022/01/13/use-all-of-duckduckgos- | ban... | | https://github.com/jameshealyio/bang-bookmarks/ | [deleted] | bmacho wrote: | Me too, on Microsoft Edge. Until one day an update nuked away | all of my custom search keywords :( | | This is probably less of a problem on firefox, where they are | regular bookmarks. | ckosidows wrote: | Same happened to me recently. I lost my custom search | keywords randomly one day | bmacho wrote: | Happened after a windows update for me. I've tried to | restore them, inspect the database where they should be, | but they were already gone. Maybe if you have a system | backup, you can find yours! | | I've found this random tutorial how to mass create Edge | search engines by editing the Edge database | https://jeffhandley.com/2022-10-17/custom-search-engines | if you want to store your search engines in a separate | file in the future | ugh123 wrote: | This is also available in Chrome! | behnamoh wrote: | I've been doing this on Brave for years. | | https://itsbehnam.com/Brave-Hacks-I-Create-my-Own-Custom-Sea... | dugmartin wrote: | This used to be baked into Chrome too but they removed it. I'm | guessing to juice the Google search metrics. | | https://twitter.com/googlechrome/status/1504858912692084745 | Ajedi32 wrote: | The Tweet says it's still there, just slightly more buried | than it used to be. Which is a shame since it's one of the | most useful features in Chrome and not a lot of people know | about it. | | Still way less confusing than Firefox's UI for this though. | What I like most about Chrome's implementation is how by | default the search engine is linked to the main site, so I | can type "yo<enter>" to visit the YouTube homepage or | "yo<tab>" to search YouTube. And there's no need to manually | set anything up (except to click the "activate" button now | next to each site you want to the feature on, unfortunately). | girishso wrote: | I don't see any "Keyword" field when creating bookmark, only | "Tags". | mcpackieh wrote: | The easiest way is to right-click on a search field and | select _" Add a Keyword for this Search"_ | brianpan wrote: | It's kind of weird that these turn into bookmarks and are | mixed in with your bookmarks. | | I think what people are talking about in this thread are | "Search Shortcuts". And I don't know why this is a "best kept | secret"; it's right in the Search section of your FF | settings. | | If you want to create one "one the fly", don't create a | bookmark, but instead right-click in a search field and | choose "Add a keyword for this search..." You can try it | using the search at the bottom of this page. | vanderZwan wrote: | If you mean from clicking on the star in the address bar, | that is correct. | | However, if you _edit_ the bookmark afterwards from the | bookmarks sidebar, or add a bookmark on the "Manage | bookmarks" tab (CTRL+SHIFT+O), you do see it. | girishso wrote: | Yes, that did help, Thanks! | yasenn wrote: | Is there some mobile browser with the same macro feature for | address bar? | | https://hn.algolia.com/?q=firefox%20address%20bar | ris58h wrote: | Use it daily for GitHub code search (gh - | https://github.com/search?type=code&q=%s). | bombolo wrote: | This has been available on kde for several years. | bmacho wrote: | I've wrote the same, with the same algolia example :D | | Do you remember if it was possible to edit or add custom search | engines from GUI before? I remember having them, but I can't | find it. Also it seems to me as a basic feature and not a | "killer feature". | bejd wrote: | Right-click on a search box > "Add a Keyword for this | Search". | | Edit: it then gets saved as a bookmark and you can edit it | like any other. | bmacho wrote: | I don't have that. Where? Algolia and google search boxes(? | the input fields?) don't show anything like that. | | edit: also if I modify a keyword for my opensearch/xml | search engines in about:preferences#search , it won't show | up as a regular bookmark. Also I can't even see the URL for | those search engines. | velut wrote: | Right click inside a search box. There should be the | option "Add a Keyword for this search". | bmacho wrote: | Where? What is a search box? | velut wrote: | The search input provided by a website. You can try with | the one in the footer of Hacker News and it works. See | https://imgur.com/oxqMw6D | [deleted] | zvmaz wrote: | There's a firefox plugin [1] that lets you add custom search | engines; they will be visible in the settings menu under | "Search Shortcuts" where you can set the keyword to trigger | the custom search. | | [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add- | custom-se... | TeMPOraL wrote: | There used to be a GUI for that. Then they removed it. The | functionality is still sorta, kinda available, in varying and | increasingly undiscoverable ways. | | Last time I checked, you had to navigate to a search engine | (and/or make a search with it?) and hope its author published | some magic special microformat metadata that identifies it as | a search engine - then Firefox would helpfully offer you an | option to add it as a search engine, somewhere in the address | bar. I don't remember if it had any indicator visible by | default, or if you had to right-click the address bar first. | | And now I learned they "improved" this once again - hiding | the feature under a right-click on a search box. | | It really seems like browser vendors want to soft-kill this | options. I'm just not sure why, especially when it comes to | Firefox. | yannyu wrote: | It's funny that this used to be a killer feature in Opera | before they fell off. Between that and mouse gestures, they | were really ahead of their time. | unsungNovelty wrote: | There is Duckduckgo Bangs - https://duckduckgo.com/bangs. They | directly searches inside a website. There are a total of 13,563 | bangs of websites. Twitter, Amazon, Stackoverflow, wikipedia, | arch linux. You have to set your search engine to DDG though. | | Wanna check if Thunderbird v115 is in arch repos? Ctrl + L, | !archpkg thunderbird | | Boom! | | My favourites: | | !w <term> searches <term> inside Wikipedia | | !so <term> searches for that term inside stackoverflow | | !a <term> searches inside amazon.com | | !ai <term> searches inside amazon.in | | !arch <term> searches inside arch wiki article for that term | | !archpkg <term> directly searches for archlinux.org/packages | | Also, I just learned that there is a "!hackernews" | jcul wrote: | And they are also supported by kagi. | | It's nice that kagi lets you define your own, so I can have | custom ones across browsers / mobile / desktop... So long as | I'm logged in and have configured kagi to be my default | search engine (my phone defaults to ddg and sometimes I might | use a browser in a VM or something). | Antipode wrote: | !hn is also for hacker news | conaclos wrote: | I really like keywords. I use keywords for search engines and | bookmarks. I created several ones to mirror DuckDuckGo bangs. | | It is unfortunate that add-ons cannot add a set of keywords: it | would be great to have all DuckDuckGo bangs defined as keywords | by an add-on. | mcpackieh wrote: | With these search keywords, I've cut down on my general purpose | search engine use dramatically, maybe 90%. Most of my searches | through ddg/google used to be searches I intended to land on a | known website with, so with search keywords for the search | functionality on wikipedia, documentation websites, etc, I have | been able to cut out the middleman. | | Also, people slag on wikipedia's search functionality a lot, | but I've found it to actually be pretty good even with | imprecise searches. For instance, I forgot the name of | Lubyanka, but searching for "KGB prison" found it: | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=kgb%20prison | hankmander wrote: | This is the killer feature that keeps me a ff user, now that | browsers are so equal in performance. | nullgeo wrote: | The opposite is true in Chrome-- the address bar a little more | than completely useless. I use it mostly for web development but | this feature along with manifest v3 introduced by Chrome might | make me switch to Firefox for good. | flas9sd wrote: | I use the shortcuts and address bar extensively - they made me a | quick bookmarker and more often I gauge what I have indexed on a | topic prior to do a websearch. With "+" you can have more than | one tag to narrow down a list if it has multiple tags. While just | using history+fuzzysearch works for a lot of people, I'm browsing | too much to have a small list when using the history on often | used terms - thus bookmarks and tagging. | nebalee wrote: | The '+' tag search never really works for me in a satisfying | way. I'd expect to be shown results that match only the tag I | ask for, but frustratingly I always get bookmarks mixed in that | match in the title and URLs. | avg_dev wrote: | oh god thank you | | this is not sarcasm. so often i have wished for something like | this. and now i know that it exists! | | sincerely, a long time firefox user | spython wrote: | Does anyone know how to delete entries from autosuggest in the | address bar? Shift + delete does not seem to work on Mac.. | matsemann wrote: | Seems to have stopped working on Windows as well. (Or was it | shift+backspace? But neither works). However, hovering over the | entry I get (...) I can press to remove. Not quick if wanting | to do many. | | That reminds me, ctrl+shift+delete to delete history gives you | a setting for "last hour", "today" etc. I wish I could have the | opposite choices. Let me easily delete history, cookies etc for | domains or something I haven't visited in X months. | rvba wrote: | Why isnt there a way to fix history. | | Say I have 50 sites about "headphones". I need to go through each | of them to find thar particular one. | | So I open them one by one, but they land on top again and polute | the search results.. what makes searching difficult. | plingbang wrote: | Interestingly, Firefox records all your visits to a particular | page, not just the latest visit. You could've changed the | history sort order to "first visit" so that the list doesn't | change when you revisit the page but that option simply isn't | there in the UI. | seaal wrote: | There is, create a private window and your history will be | fixed. | alextingle wrote: | That is a legit useful tip. Thanks. | sfink wrote: | It would be nice if the author could fix this page, since the | examples are incorrect and do not work as written. You need a | space after the magic character. | | Although I use it exactly as described (prefixing my search with | the magic character followed by a space), it's not necessarily | the best way to use it. If you can retrain your muscle memory, | these shortcuts are better as suffixes. "% fish" will only show | the open tabs (in the current container) with "fish" in them. | "fish %" does the same, but when you've only typed the "fish" | part, it will have the full set of search suggestions. Which are | generally quite good in Firefox, and if what you're looking for | is already in an open tab, it'll probably be in the list. But | sometimes I don't remember if I have the tab open, so a history | result would be better. With the suffix, you get the best of both | worlds: the initial "fish" may show too many things, so tacking | on "fish %" will restrict it to just the open tab results. That | avoids doing it in two passes and having to go back and edit to | remove the restriction token. | | The actual feature is richer than you might think. It's only | hinted at in https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/address-bar- | autocomplet... but there's actually a little DSL for queries. You | can build these things up into filters. "% fish # github" will | search for open tabs with github in their title. So if you can | too many results (with eg "% fish"), you can filter them down | incrementally (by tacking on " # github"). Yes, this disagrees | with the previous suggestion; I'm back to prefixes here. | | See https://firefox-source- | docs.mozilla.org/browser/urlbar/nonte... for gory details of the | address bar's operation in general, though it doesn't go into | detail about the restriction tokens. | DangerousPie wrote: | It works fine without spaces for me. | sfink wrote: | Whoa, you're right! I know it used to be a problem, since I | told several people about the feature, they tried it, it | didn't work, and when looking at it I realized they were | leaving off the space (or I hadn't even mentioned it). | | Err... I attempted to update my comment. I guess it was too | old but I still had the page open with an edit link present? | | And now I notice that multiple other people are reporting | that they still need the space. Something smells buggy.... | Aardwolf wrote: | That's really cool! But perhaps this should be made discoverable | by e.g. showing the tokens or just a list of different search | options somehow (right clicking the address bar, or a small | button on it you can press, ...) | | BTW something I really dislike about firefox is the switch to tab | behavior when your bookmark/url happens to match an open tab: I | guess it tries to be economical and bring you to a tab where you | already have that page open. But that means switching context to | another window or even virtual desktop for me. Also sometimes | maybe I want to keep the other tab at its current state? I wish | this behavior could be disabled, it has almost never been what I | wanted. | mrj wrote: | I think you can use control-enter to open a new tab instead. | But with Firefox open right now I searched for several open | things and it didn't offer to switch tabs. I've usually only | seen that when searching tabs with % though. | thesuitonym wrote: | There are buttons at the bottom of the address bar for | Bookmarks, Tabs, and History, and they even show you the | shortcuts. | conaclos wrote: | I really like this way of discovering new functionalities. It | is how I discovered the bookmark searches via the star *. | [deleted] | sedatk wrote: | These shortcuts work in Edge too: | | ^ -> searches in History | | % -> searches in Tabs | | * -> searches in Favorites | freditup wrote: | You can also tweak the behavior via `about:config` to emphasize | the types of results you care about. I like to set | `browser.search.suggest.enabled` to `false` to keep it from | showing search suggestions since I almost exclusively want to | either type in my own search term or go back to a previous | webpage I've visited. | dao- wrote: | The proper end user settings for this are currently in | about:preferences#privacy (also linked to from | about:preferences#search where most users would probably expect | them). We have a myriad of about:config prefs affecting the | address bar that are hard to keep track of and understand even | for Firefox engineers (e.g. because the term "suggest" is | overloaded), so I'd avoid recommending about:config to end | users even among the Hacker News audience. | masfuerte wrote: | The UI doesn't let you turn off searching from the address | bar. It does let you choose to have a separate search box, | but that doesn't seem to alter the address bar's behaviour. | And when you do disable search with about:config the prompt | still reads "Search with Bing or enter address". | [deleted] | freditup wrote: | Thanks for the improved tip - I have found it hard to parse | through all the address-bar-related about:config options in | the past, the UI seems like a better way! | sergimansilla wrote: | Ha, I've been using these for years, I thought it was better | known! | veaxvoid wrote: | most of the time when i search errors, address bar thinks it's a | site | harry8 wrote: | so I tried a url that works on my local network and is in my | history, bookmarks etc. Every single one of those modifiers sent | that hostname with the modifier to my default search engine. | | Maybe it doesn't play nicely, or at all with privacy badger, | ublock origin, ddg etc plugins installed? | __jonas wrote: | For me, using it as it is described in the examples also does | not work, instead I have to hit space after the modifier, then | the address bar will go into the correct mode and the UI shows | this as well. | | It also works with pasting to the address bar, but the space | between modifier and term seems to be required. | mrj wrote: | You can turn of search suggestions if that's what you prefer. | You can even have a dedicated search box instead of having | address and search combined. | adql wrote: | All I want for this dumb thing is to | | * correct ttps:// to https:// | | * stop searching internet for local hostname I type into the bar | hexage1814 wrote: | You probably could fix this using the extension "Redirector" | and creating a filter for it.. | cobbaut wrote: | > stop searching internet for local hostname I type into the | bar | | Yes, please. I have a separate address bar and search bar in | Firefox, and it still insists on searching DDG for local hosts | names when I type them in the address bar. Stop doing this. | (The solution for now is to type http://localname/ ) | aftbit wrote: | Try "localname/" instead, though that will try https by | default with my settings. | tux1968 wrote: | As long as your local names aren't changing all the time, an | easy way is to create a keyword in your Firefox bookmarks, | for each local host. That's specifically a keyword, not a | tag. You can edit them in the Manage Bookmarks screen. | | One nice feature of this is you can give a more complete URL | for each keyword, for instance typing "nas" could link to | "https://192.168.0.4:8181" with an IP and port number. It's | instantly fast, and doesn't rely on a functioning DNS server. | thesuitonym wrote: | Also: Show the full URI in the address bar. For some reason, | firefox thinks it's cool to hide the protocol section when | visiting http pages. Thankfully, it still shows https, an | improvement over Chrome's mess of a UI. | paintballboi07 wrote: | Yeah, this actually screws up LastPass's URL matching. | kikoreis wrote: | That's fixable via browser.urlbar.trimURLs: | https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/881261 | alextingle wrote: | Now can they fix the URLbar so that focussing it doesn't weirdly | select all. So frustrating when I want to edit a URL. | YayaScript wrote: | Is there anything similar in Safari? | robbyking wrote: | This plugin: https://apps.apple.com/app/keyword- | search/id1558453954 | jjice wrote: | I used to use the asterisk a lot in college when I kept a larger | collection of bookmarks for class related resources. These days I | really don't use book marks as much. I feel like the majority of | my repeated browsing experience ends up on HN, GitHub, and our | logging service. | javajosh wrote: | Great tips although I wish they'd link to the original source: | | https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/address-bar-autocomplet... | everybodyknows wrote: | There's a handy search box on the page. A query for "timeout" | there leads to many calls for help, but few replies. This for | instance: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1350502 | mxuribe wrote: | Thanks for sharing this! | tjoff wrote: | One thing I'm missing is able to copy the URL of many tabs. | | As soon as you were able to select multiple tabs for making | bookmarks I just assumed that you could ctrl+c and get the urls | in plaintext. But doesn't seem to be that easy. | ajot wrote: | Not a solution, but I can copy multiple tabs addresses with a | tree style tabs addon, Sideberry. | mormegil wrote: | I would swear this was in the right-click menu when multiple | tabs were selected? But maybe it was some extension. | diarized wrote: | That would be a job for a tab extension, wouldn't be? Like Tree | Style Tab. | watashiato wrote: | The no-addon workaround for this is to right click any tab, | first select all tabs and then bookmark all tabs. Give the | folder a name and open it in the bookmark manager. Now you can | select them all and copy the URLs. | | It's an awkward solution, but it does work and is relatively | quick. | Jap2-0 wrote: | I use a nice little Firefox extension (might also be available | for Chrome) called TabList - it's about 20 lines of code and | works great. | nullcipher wrote: | This is like perl but better ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-07-10 23:00 UTC)