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Typing the web site name in search bar without a suffix no longer works

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

McMike
McMike
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Hi, when I type the body of a URL in the search bar without the .com suffix (i.e. "gmail"), Firefox no longer guesses my intent and takes me to the site.

Now weird things happen, either it doesn't go anywhere just spins, or takes me to my default search engine, or takes me to my ISP's search page.

Seems like that feature used to work.

Thanks

Hi, when I type the body of a URL in the search bar without the .com suffix (i.e. "gmail"), Firefox no longer guesses my intent and takes me to the site. Now weird things happen, either it doesn't go anywhere just spins, or takes me to my default search engine, or takes me to my ISP's search page. Seems like that feature used to work. Thanks

Chosen solution

Hi McMike, quite a long time ago Firefox switched to sending a single word like gmail to search first instead of doing a DNS lookup first. There used to be a preference to revert to the old behavior and that was removed recently. If this seems like a change to you, maybe you were using that preference.

Here's one workaround:

If your word should be placed between www. and .com you can type the word and then instead of pressing Enter, press Ctrl+Enter to apply that "fixup."

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jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 25 Contributor
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Chosen Solution

Hi McMike, quite a long time ago Firefox switched to sending a single word like gmail to search first instead of doing a DNS lookup first. There used to be a preference to revert to the old behavior and that was removed recently. If this seems like a change to you, maybe you were using that preference.

Here's one workaround:

If your word should be placed between www. and .com you can type the word and then instead of pressing Enter, press Ctrl+Enter to apply that "fixup."

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Is keyword.enabled still set to true on the about:config page ?

There is also this hidden pref that defaults to false when not defined:

  • browser.fixup.dns_first_for_single_words
  • bug 1636583 - Allow forcing a visit by appending a slash to uri-like search strings

Modified by cor-el

McMike
McMike Question owner
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cor-el said
Is keyword.enabled still set to true on the about:config page ? There is also this hidden pref that defaults to false when not defined:
  • browser.fixup.dns_first_for_single_words
  • bug 1636583 - Allow forcing a visit by appending a slash to uri-like search strings


Keyword.enabled is set to true. There is no browser.fixup.dns in my config. Thanks

Thanks

cor-el
cor-el
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If you set keyword.enabled to false then Firefox shouldn't do a search, but will try to resolve via a DNS lookup.

The Boolean browser.fixup.dns_first_for_single_words pref doesn't exist by default, so if you want to force a lookup then you need to create this as a Boolean pref and set the value to true.
In Firefox 79 this pref will be present on the about:config page.

  • bug 1643259 - Unhide browser.fixup.dns_first_for_single_words [79]