This is as much for my own reference as for anyone else, but hey. I use Firefox, and have become accustomed to typing “google whatever” into the address bar to Google for “whatever”. Unfortunately with the fresh install of FF on my new (well, not so new any more) laptop, that stopped working, as Firefox had automatic keyword search enabled, so typing anything in the address bar that wasn’t an address would be turned into a Google search. This meant that “google whatever” would result in a Google search for “google whatever” rather than a search for “whatever”.

The fix: go to the advanced config by typing about:config in the address bar, find the setting keyword.enabled and toggle it to false.

Now, set up bookmarks with keywords – I haven’t time to type that up, so read the recent post on Lifehacker – Fiften Firefox Quick Searches – it’s easy stuff.

Now, things are as they should be. If I want to Google for something, I’ll type “google whatever”. If I want to go to a web address, I’ll type a web address. If I want to look something up in a dictionary I’ll type “dict whatever”. If whatever I type isn’t an address and isn’t one of the keywords I’ve set up, Firefox will tell me that I’m being a muppet – exactly as it should do IMO, rather than just automatically going to Google.