Before I upgraded to 4.0, I could type, say "pandora" into the address bar and it would take me to the website, but now that I have upgraded the same action takes me to a google search for the word pandora. What gives?
Before I upgraded to 4.0, I could type, say... "pandora" into the address bar and Firefox would take me directly to the website. Now that I have upgraded, the same action takes me to a google search for the word pandora. In my opinion, this is a downgrade! What gives? Can I fix it?
Wšykne wótegrona (1)
The change between Firefox 3.6.* and Firefox 4 is how location bar search works. In Firefox 3.6 it uses Google "Browse by name" search. With the browse by name search, it performs a Google search and if there is a clear match it will take you to the site, otherwise it shows the Google search result. With Firefox 4 it just performs a Google search if you type something which is not recognised as a URL.
To get the Firefox 3.6 behaviour on Firefox 4 you need to change a hidden preference.
- Type about:config into the location bar and press enter
- Accept the warning message that appears, you will be taken to a list of preferences
- Locate the preference keyword.URL, double-click on it and change its value to the link shown below
http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=
If you prefer, you can also do this by installing the Browse by Name extension - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/browse-by-name