Would like to disable search function in Firefox
Hi, I am using Firefox in Linux Mint, version 44.02 on my laptop. I am plugged into a wireless Internet-like wireless network that spans about 20 miles. We have email, telephone, chat room and now a website on the mesh network.
We do not have a search engine, and I have no need for the search function to try to redirect me to something that does not exist on our "Internet,"
How may I disable the search function altogether?
If I type in a bad address, "The server could not be found" is all I need.
Thank you.
Chosen solution
So for example, if you were to type myrouter in the address bar and press Enter, you would like Firefox to report that it cannot find the server http://myrouter/ ?
There are two features you need to turn off, keyword search and fixup. Here's how:
(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.
(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste keyw and pause while the list is filtered
(3) Double-click the keyword.enabled preference to switch it from true to false
(4) In the search box above the list, replace keyw with fix and pause while the list is filtered
(5) Double-click the browser.fixup.alternate.enabled preference to switch it from true to false
Does that give you the result you're looking for?
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Chosen Solution
So for example, if you were to type myrouter in the address bar and press Enter, you would like Firefox to report that it cannot find the server http://myrouter/ ?
There are two features you need to turn off, keyword search and fixup. Here's how:
(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.
(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste keyw and pause while the list is filtered
(3) Double-click the keyword.enabled preference to switch it from true to false
(4) In the search box above the list, replace keyw with fix and pause while the list is filtered
(5) Double-click the browser.fixup.alternate.enabled preference to switch it from true to false
Does that give you the result you're looking for?
Thank you! That was exactly what I needed. I expanded your suggested search for fix, I expanded that to fixup. That shortened up the list to show me the fixup function I needed to change. It also shows me where it changes things to www. and .com, if that was my only wish.
I conducted various tests. Unplugged the router cable and typed localnode:8080 -- did not go to www.localnode.com:8080 and fail. It failed on the spot. Reconnected the cable and hit Try again, it went right to the website on the router.
Typed one word and hit enter -- Server not found.
Typed two words as in a search term -- Invalid address. No redirect to Wikipedia, then fail.
If a station is out of range, I should not be seeing anymore redirects to a dot com or search attempt.
Your solution is perfect! Thank you.
(Edit) I'm glad there was a way for me to deselect my thank-you as the chosen solution and choose the answer provided by jscher2000. He deserves the credit. (/Edit)
jscher2000 said
So for example, if you were to type myrouter in the address bar and press Enter, you would like Firefox to report that it cannot find the server http://myrouter/ ? There are two features you need to turn off, keyword search and fixup. Here's how: (1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful. (2) In the search box above the list, type or paste keyw and pause while the list is filtered (3) Double-click the keyword.enabled preference to switch it from true to false (4) In the search box above the list, replace keyw with fix and pause while the list is filtered (5) Double-click the browser.fixup.alternate.enabled preference to switch it from true to false Does that give you the result you're looking for?
Modified by Linux_Mint_Firefox
I performed the fixup edit here in Windows 7 Firefox 45.0, which lets me preserve the address I typed in, and I can make whatever needed changes, say I typed example,com (comma instead of a period in front of com -- a common typo for me).
That lets me still do a search from the address bar.