Manage Search Engines does not allow direct access to Google Advanced Search
The Firefox list of search engines (top right corner) does not allow me to directly access Google Advanced Search. In order to do so I've found I must put Google Advanced under Unsorted Bookmarks. It appears rerouting has taken place rather than a direct route to Google Advanced. For this reason I've only retained Wikipedia because I don't trust rerouted access when Google is such a widely recognized search engine.
What brought this about was StartPage was not loading so I went to Google, which I rarely use, and attempted to insert a URL under Manage Search Engines... to take me directly to Google Advanced Search. When accessed instead I got a list of results, none of which were directly associated with Google. It was obvious when looking at the address bar that Google was first ported through other websites which then sent me to the Google Advanced Search page, depending on which item on the list I chose. I hope Firefox has an explanation for this because otherwise it reduces my level of trust.
I always used Advanced Search for StartPage or IxQuick and can access Advanced Search through Tools>Options>General Tab. I then set the Home page with the Advanced option through the URL. Most of my searches involve adding extra things to narrow a search, such as keywords, exact phrase, none of these words and a date span in order to get a list of reasonable length. Otherwise I must go through a one line search which then allows me to go further with an advanced search when I know at the outset that is what will be required.
Modified by MozillaFirefoxNewbie
All Replies (3)
The Google search engine in the address bar sends your searches to google.com. If you're being redirected elsewhere, you likely have a malware problem.
I don't know what you mean when you say you want Advanced Search in the search bar. The search bar sends the words you enter to a search engine, while Advanced Search is a form on a web page that you have to fill out.
You can use search operators like date:1 site:support.mozilla.org or allintitle:Manage Search Engines to perform an advanced search.
If you want to add an engine to the search bar, you can
- Use the Add To Search Bar add-on
- Install one from the Mycroft Project (very large selection)
- Install one from the Firefox Add-ons site (much smaller selection)
Put the following in the Address Bar:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search
Drag the link from the Address Bar to the Firefox Search Engines in the upper right corner. Note that Firefox allows this. The reason I did this is because there was no other way to open Google Search in the Advanced mode.
Now please tell me, after you've done this, what results you get?
As I previously stated, this DOES NOT return Google Advanced Search, but rather a list of websites that purport to be associated with Google. If you select the top most on the list you will get Google Advanced Search, or what appears to be.
It seems to me that, if Firefox allowed this to be done, it should be prohibited if it results in malware.
You can't drop the URL from the address bar onto the search bar to add a search engine. See my reply above for how to add a search engine or perform advanced searches.
Dropping selected text into the search box performs a search for that text with the selected search engine. That's perfectly normal behavior. So what you're doing is searching google.com for "http://www.google.com/advanced_search"
Maybe what you want is to bookmark the page in question, in which case you can just drag the URL to your bookmarks toolbar instead.