One of the my favorite things in Firefox and Opera is having the ability to perform searches right from the location bar using keywords. In fact I’ve always removed the search box from the browser simply because I never use it. But when I found out about the Peers extension I thought it was going to be the extension that would actually get me to use the search box once and for all. I was wrong.
Ghacks uncovered an incredible extension that could very well be the best one ever created. I know, a lot of extensions have passed through the golden gates of the add-ons site, but I don’t think any of them will save me as much time as this one does.
The extension is called AwesomeSearch, which is named after the new Firefox 3 location bar (pictured above) that’s dubbed the “Awesome Bar.” With it you’ll get Google and Amazon search results intermingled with the items from your browser’s history. Here’s a video demonstration put together by the author to show you how it works.
As you can see in my screenshot the search results that are pulled in are highlighted with a blue background, and that makes it easier to differentiate what’s a search result and what’s a site you’ve previously visited. The true power of the extension, however, will only be revealed if you’re familiar with some of Google’s advanced search operators. A good example of this is what I have typed into the location bar in my screenshot, where the “site:cybernetnews.com” is the advanced search operator. By including that as part of the query it only returns results from our site. This basically gives you a nearly instantaneous way to search specific sites. Another example would be using “site:en.wikipedia.org” to only show results from the English Wikipedia site. Now do you see why this is so cool?
I sent an email to the developer with some recommendations that would make the extension even better. One of the things that came to my mind was having the ability to create keyword searches so that you can force it to only show Google results, and not anything from your browser’s history. That can be taken even further by being able to automatically append text onto the query based upon which keyword you use. For example, typing “wiki [search text]” into the location bar would actually be like performing a Google search formatted like “[search text] site:en.wikipedia.org“. That’s just an idea, but it would give people the chance to add site-specific search capabilities without the developer working overtime trying to make it compatible with dozens of different services.
The extension is currently in the experimental stage, and you’ll have to login with your Mozilla account to install it. It’s also not officially compatible with the latest Firefox 3 release, which means you’ll also need to ignore extension compatibility checking before trying to grab it.
It’s been awhile since I’ve gotten this excited about a Firefox extension! One thing that I do want to point out is that this does also search Amazon, and it uses affiliate links for the results it retrieves. It’s just an easy way to support the developer though.
Creator isn’t responding but I’ve already managed to tweaked the javascript. I think all we need is to suppress the history list is in the css and adding searches is in javascript. I’ve already managed to remove amazon search from it (lol amazon) and adding wikipedia + changing the blue style into normal url bar style.
(btw I’m the guy who sent martin the addon)
That’s awesome that you got Wikipedia in there. Maybe you can pickup the project.
It doesn’t work with Firefox 3 RC1
Really good idea indeed, just wish it was a lot more customizable (max. number of results, choice of search providers, positioning of the results..).
I never saw such extension in FireFox. I saw something vaguely resembling this in another browser (to remain nameless). I started typing few keywords for things I *never* searched on my browser, and bingo ! I got exactly what I was looking for. I feel the same way as the reviewer of this extension: this is something I will hardly be able to live without, from now on.
I agree that a search provider selection would be great, as I do not always use the same one, sometime I need to use a local one, or a different one. But this is only a matter of offering a selection, and parsing search results, which are likely to be sent in a different format.
Great work !!!!!!!
Google must have changed something, because since a few hours I only get Amazon results back
Works fine for me. Maybe you have a conflicting extension.
Yeah, I emailed the developer about being able to adjust the positioning, and also about the number of results. Still haven’t heard back from him though.
Yeah, it’s pretty crazy how useful this actually is. It would be awesome if in the next release of Firefox Mozilla incorporated something like this.
Really? It still works great for me. Have you tried typing in some obscure query that definitely won’t match anything in your history?
Yup, for instance, I just tried “site:cybernetnews.com firefox” but nothing came back. Tried it on two different PCs, the 2nd didn’t have many extensions installed. Only manage to get Amazon results still
Strange that it still works for you.. I wonder what it could be..
Actually wikipedia didn’t work as planned, api is driving me crazy
. If you guys want I’ve a copy with amazon search removed and blue style fixed 
[filedropper.com]
Maybe you should backup your profile and try starting fresh if you really want to get this to work. Definitely sounds like some kind of conflict.
Thanks! I was actually thinking about diving into it on my own to try and get the keyword functionality that I described above. That way you wouldn’t actually have to implement the Wikipedia API since you could just use the “site:en.wikipedia.org” functionality of the Google search results. It will basically return the same thing.
Yeah, maybe I should because it works fine at work. I already uninstalled/reinstalled and disabled most other extensions (at least the ones I don’t use at work) to see if that would fix it.. I think I’ll try again and start fresh once Fx3 final is released.
One thing crossed my mind though: this way you’re doing tons of searches on Amazon/Google automatically, even when you don’t need/want to. This could have some privacy implications. It would be nice if we could activate this extension by starting with a keyword, e.g. “AS search this”.
Already on top of it… I decided to pickup the extension since the developer isn’t responding. But shhh… don’t tell anyone.
I’m planning on releasing something in the next week or two. As it stands right now I’ve got an entire keyword system in place (along with some preferences) so that you can specify keywords that will search specific sites. It still uses Google search to do this, but it works pretty well. For example, you can set the keyword “w” to only show results from Wikipedia. Right now I’ve got the entire keyword system implemented (you can add/remove as many keywords as you want), and it currently shows 8 results (instead of 4). That’s the maximum for the Google search API, but I know a way around so that I can extend it even more.
I just want to get some options in there that will make it more usable before I start letting anyone test it. And it will be called “CyberSearch” in case you’re wondering.
Oh, and I removed the Amazon functionality. I figured that could always be added back by using a keyword if someone really wanted it. I’m not going to try and make money off the affiliates like the original developer did.
Did I just say all that out loud?
Whoaaa, can’t wait!!