BLADAM - Entry - Super-speedy-search tip for Firefoxers! (search keywords)

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Super-speedy-search tip for Firefoxers! (search keywords)

I love RottenTomatoes.com. It’s one of the most useful and addictive movie sites I’ve found, right along with IMDB.com. Now I can look up movies on either database in a snap by using a surprisingly little-known Firefox feature that lets you assign a keyword of your choice to any search on any site.

I’ve set up my browser so that I can type “rt [moviename]” or “imdb [moviename]” in my Firefox addressbar and be whisked right to that movie’s page in RottenTomatoes or IMDB respectively.

It’s easy to do! Just go to your favorite site (movie or otherwise) in Firefox and right-click on a search bar on the page (e.g., where you’d normally enter in a movie to look up) and then select “Add a Keyword for this Search.” You’ll then see something like this:

Enter in any title you want in the first box (that’s what’ll show up in your bookmarks), choose a short but easy to remember keyword, and the URL should be filled in automatically for you.

From then on, you can enter in stuff like “rt an inconvenient truth” (great movie, btw!) directly into your Firefox addressbar and save yourself the hassle of navigating to the RT homepage, then finding the search box, etc.

* * *

But what if you’d like to make use of such a handy feature at home and work (or on your personal desktop and laptop) and don’t want to set up such shortcuts multiple times?

Google Browser Sync to the rescue! (insert standard disclaimer here… I work for Google, I don’t work on this particular product, I’m not paid to write this, yadda yadda yadda). It’s a super-nifty way of having your bookmarks, cookies, and other stuff (you choose!) automatically synchronized across all your computers. And yes, privacy-keen geeks, you can opt to have all of this stuff encrypted, too . The downside: This extension causes my Firefox to load more slowly (sometimes taking 10-15 seconds), but I’m guessing that’s because I have a crapload of settings, extensions, bookmarks, etc. It’s still well worth the initial load-wait for me.

* * *

Anyway, I hope you find these tips helpful, and feel free to share any of your own Firefox tips below!

- Blathered by Adam on Sunday, July 2, 2006 at 12:18 [ Permalink | Trackback ]
- Filed under Geekery • Geek tips • Search engines • Google
- Commented on by 7 folks so far. Scroll down and see for yourself (and join in the conversation!)

Comment from Erik Dafforn Indianapolis [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	Adam, I have about a dozen of those set up! If you want to add a few more and need quick reference to the search URLs needed (for Yahoo, MSN, G, Technorati (blog and tag search), G/Y/M News, G/Y blog search), check here and here. -erik - Posted on Monday, July 3, 2006 at 4:53 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from member Adam San Francisco [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	See, Erik, this is just further proof that I should have been more consistent in reading your SEO Speedwagon blog. I completely missed those entries, and they’re quite useful! Thanks for sharing ‘em here. - Posted on Monday, July 3, 2006 at 18:39 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from Jannik Lindquist Copenhagen, Denmark [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	Grrrr, Adam! You’ve just pulled me out of almost a years peace of mind (well - almost) with Opera During that period I frequently installed the latest Firefox to see if customized searches had been implemented - and always concluded that this was not the case! I knew about a couple of related extension - but I didn’t like them much. My single major reason for not switching is now gone...Since I am a huge fan of Google Reader - and GR apparently works much better in Firefox - I’ll switch for a while and see what happens. I’ll be back! Jannik - Posted on Tuesday, July 4, 2006 at 12:40 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from member Adam San Francisco [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	Hey Jannik, I’ve been honestly surprised at how few people (even fellow geeks!) knew about this feature of Firefox. And glad you like Google Reader; nice folks on that team that are very passionate about blogging and feed stuff. Anyway, hope the Firefox transition goes well. Check out the various cool extensions (Google and otherwise) but do add ‘em slowly one at a time, so if there are conflicts, you don’t have to gnash your teeth/fingers and try to figure out which extension doesn’t like the other one. - Posted on Tuesday, July 4, 2006 at 19:43 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from member Swish Sydney, Australia [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	Ooh! Very useful! For some reason my search engine field in Firefox defaults to google.co.uk instead of google.com.au. I spent ages trying to figure out how to change it, but now i can just bypass the issue entirely! - Posted on Saturday, August 12, 2006 at 23:51 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from member James Australia [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	Excellent one, Well i was not knowing about it. Really firefox have many attributes which are still unknown. Thanks for it Adam. - Posted on Wednesday, February 20, 2008 at 22:08 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from member Alberto [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	truely, an excellent tip!! - Posted on Sunday, March 9, 2008 at 15:10 [ Permalink to this comment ]

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