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Comment by kentosi | Hacker News Reader

Good work guys.

For those using Firefox, I have one question. Is there any way to replicate Chrome's tab-to-search feature? It's literally the ONLY reason I'm still on Chrome.

Let me explain by showing how I would search for "apples" in youtube across both browsers.

Firefox:

1 - Ctrl+L (go to location bar) 2 - Type "you", press "down" to select youtube from history. 3 - Wait for site to load...... 4 - Click on search box 5 - Type in "apples" 6 - Press enter

Chrome:

1 - Ctrl+L (go to location bar) 2 - Type "you", and if youtube is first item in history, 3 - Press "tab" 4 - Type in "apples" 5 - Press enter.

Youtube opens up with my searched item. Nice and easy with far fewer key presses no waiting nor mouse clicking.

Works for youtube, hacker news, wiktionary, google images, and a heap of other sites I use daily.

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Yes but it isn't as good as google.

Go to youtube.

Right click on the youtube search bar.

add a keyword for this search.

choose your keyword (ex: yt)

now you can type in the omnibar "yt my search" and it will do directly the search. It's not as good as chrome solution but it's the only thing for now.

Wow, that's absolutely awesome. It respects container tabs too (search opens in YouTube container tab if launched from any other container).

This'll actually make a measurable difference to me on a daily basis with how much I search youtube for study at the moment. Thanks.

Wow I actually like this better. Didn't know about these features in either browser though.

I remember first using this feature in IE6 back when that browser was new, and I've used it since then. I have "i" for IMDb search, "w" for WikiPedia. "g" goes to DuckDuckGo now after Google became malicious and evil, because of years of muscle memory.

You sir/mam have just revolutionised by browsing experience. I now love FF even more.

Here is more detail about creating custom keyword searches. For example, I have a Bugzilla keyword search so the keyword "bug" will expand the URL "https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=%s". Thus, entering "bug 1000000" in the address bar will expand to "https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1000000".

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-search-from-address...

Create a Search Bookmark

1. Got to the Bookmark Library and Right Click > New Bookmark and fill it as follows: Name: YouTube Search Location: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s Keyword: you

2. Click Add

3. Now in the Location bar type "you apples" and apples will be searched on YouTube.

I use this for a lot of sites with search inputs. I often do searches using ddg of sites I visit with forums or other buried content. Any search that has a URL that you can input a set of terms into can be used. Just use %s in the location for where the terms are in the URL.

Example using DDG to search CarForum.com:https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3CarForum.com+%s&t=ffab&ia=we...

This does the query "site:CarForum.com %s" on DDG.

I even use it to quickly reach Jira tickets that I know the number of. Just modify the URL with a Bookmark.

I think in Firefox the closest is to manually add them as search providers with a short code :/ Right-click in e.g. the search field on YouTube, there's an option to add it with a key word, e.g. "yt". You then can do "yt apples" in the address bar.

Maybe there's an extension that does the Chrome thing, but I searched in the past and didn't find one.

Hi,

I am using firefox with duckduckgo.

Firefox + DDG = Ctrl+L - Type "!yt apples", press enter

https://duckduckgo.com/bang

This is so cool! DDG is my default search engine but I only knew about !g for Google.

!hn for hacker news, !gi for google images and !wt for wiktionary.

Thanks for these. I always want to search in hn specifically. This will be so helpful.

There are a ton of these in DDG: https://duckduckgo.com/bang

yeah, that's what I love most about DDG for my default search engine, it's just like having a zillion custom keyword searches preconfigured.

It would be cool if Firefox itself had those keyword searches preconfigured. That way you wouldn't have to send all your queries through DDG.

Firefox have a search bar for this purpose. Isn't Chrome sending everything you type in the omnibar, including urls and search queries, to Google?

To search for "apples" on Youtube, press Ctrl-E to focus on the search bar, type "apples", click on the Youtube icon or press Ctrl-down/up arrow to choose Youtube, then enter.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?type=search

Most people don't use search bar these days. Why have two fields when you can use one?

Also - too many actions in your example vs. very simple and effective tab-to-search or keyword search available in Firefox.

even simpler in firefox:

[1] open youtube.com

[2] right click on the search bar and select "Add a keyword for this search"

[3] in the dialog enter the character "y" as the keyword.

[4] done!

now to search youtube from the address bar just enter y followed by the search terms!

I'd argue that manually adding each site individually is not "even simpler".

Does Chrome do it for random site searches? Not for Google properties.

Chrome automatically adds sites if they have an OpenSearch description document: https://www.chromium.org/tab-to-search

Firefox requires the user to add the search engine manually: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-or-remove-search-en...

I use DuckDuckGo as my default search engine. Doing this is as simple as:

1 - Ctrl+L (go to location bar)

2 - Type "yt! apples"

3 - There is not step 3.

This needs to go to DDG first, which makes it slow.

I love that feature too. It uses the opensearch spec, and shouldn't be hard to implement

Ah wow, I had always wondered what magic was behind this feature! Had no idea there was a spec about it, that makes tons of sense.

Here's a description of the spec, if you are interested: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/OpenSearch

Firefox uses it to populate the search bar drop down menu with the available search engines for a site, but it does not add them automatically like Chrome does.

It should be possible to build this with an extension, but I haven't tried.

That being said, there are a few alternatives. Firefox Top Sites supports search engines, as described in https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/save-a-search-step/. Additionally, if you use DuckDuckGo as your default, you can use bang patterns, which I prefer as they are curated.

If you use duck duck go as your search engine I think you can use their bang search functionality

You have to bookmark the search URL replacing the query with %s then set a keyword on the bookmark

location: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s keyword: g

example search 'g test query'

See, this means that I need to do this for every site I want to search in advance. With Chrome I literally just have to visit the site. No creating bookmarks, nothing.

you can add it manually by clicking on the page options button (the three dots in the address bar)

then choose "Add Search Engine"

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