
"In a move that will raise eyebrows, Mozilla is now distributing a
version of Firefox that uses Bing as the default search provider instead of Google. Rest assured that this is a joint project, though: the creatively-named Firefox with Bing website is run by Microsoft, and both Mozilla and MS are clear that this is a joint venture. Now, don't get too excited - the default version of Firefox available from Mozilla.com is still backed by Google, and there's no mention of an alternative, Bingy download anywhere on the site - but it's worth noting that Mozilla has been testing Bing's capabilities using Test Pilot over the last couple of months, and the release of Firefox with Bing indicates that Mozilla is now confident in Bing's ability to provide a top-notch service to Firefox users." Test pilot or not, I'm stockpiling more baked beans.
Member since:
2010-01-21
Of course, it would help if FF properly supported this use case and didn't force you to put the search box back on your toolbar, in order to manage your search engines.
The only way to get around this is to launch FF straight in to the manager chrome al la firefox -chrome chrome://browser/content/search/engineManager.xul
Actually, you don't have to if you use "Quick Searches". That's another reason I use them.
If you go into your bookmark manager (The "Library" window) and use the "More" button that appears when a bookmark is selected, you can set up something like this instead of using the search box:
Location: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s
Keyword: yt
They behave the same as search box keywords except:
1. You can't choose them in the search box drop-down (which neither of us seem to care about)
2. They actually show up as proper results in the AwesomeBar when you type something like "yt foo" so you can be sure you know what pressing Enter will do.
What really surprises me is how Firefox essentially has two independent keyword-searching systems, each with bits the other could benefit from.