How to Customize Your Firefox Search Controls

[Animous]

You use Firefox to surf the web and you run your searches directly from the browser, but there's more to searching in Firefox than meets the eye.

You can tweak and control your searches to get more narrow or accurate results; run your searches from the search or address bar; see suggestions as you type; and pick your default search engine. You can also change your search results on the fly by adding special characters to search the web, in open tabs, your browsing history, or across bookmarks. Let's see how to control your searches in Firefox.

Firefox Search Settings

First, let's check out the various search settings you can tweak. In Firefox, click on the hamburger icon () and select Options.

Get Rid of or Add the Search Bar in Firefox

Click on the Search category. Under Search Bar, the first option—Use the address bar for search and navigation—means the address bar doubles as the search bar. The second option separates those two functions and adds a window on the right where you can type search terms.

Beyond typing searches in the address bar, you can enter your term in the search field on the Firefox page that appears when you open a new tab. When you type your search in the address bar, Firefox shows you results not just from the web but also from your browsing history, synced pages, bookmarked pages, and open tabs.

Change Firefox's Default Search Engine

In 2014, Mozilla inked a five-year deal to make Yahoo its default search engine. That changed last year following Verizon's acquisition of Yahoo, and Google is once again the default. To change that, click on the drop-down menu that shows your current search engine and switch it to the one you prefer, such as Bing or DuckDuckGo.

Change Search Engines

Now when you type a search term, either in the address field or the search field on the Firefox page, the browser uses your new default search engine. But it also displays icons for the other search engines and websites so you can easily switch to a different one.

Choose Alternate Search Engines

You can change the search icons that appear when you search, though. Click to the left of the site(s) you wish to add or remove; a blue check mark will appear next to those that are activated.

Add Search Engines

To add a search engine or site that's not listed, click the link to Find more search engines. From the Firefox Add-ons page that pops up, select any search engines you want to add as alternatives. The icons for those search engines will then appear when you run a search.

Show Search Suggestions

If you want to see related searches when you start typing your own search term at the Firefox page that appears when a new tab opens, check the option to Provide search suggestions.

Related Searches

Open a new tab. Type your search term in the search field, and Firefox displays related searches.

Organize Search Suggestions

To see suggestions when you type a search term in the address field, check the option to Show search suggestions in address bar results. And to see suggestions ahead of your browsing history in a search in the address bar, check the option to Show search suggestions ahead of browsing history in address bar results.

Search Suggestions and Links

Now, type a search in the address bar, and Firefox displays suggestions followed by links to your browsing history.

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