Faster searches with Firefox

#productivity #firefox

This post is about 2 things: Improve time spent on searches, and improve time to reach your bookmarks.

Faster searches

For work purposes, I need to use the Google search engine as it is very performant for tech searches (sorry duck.com). But something I missed from duckduckgo was the bang option.

With the duck search engine, if you want to search something specific on google maps, just start your search with !gm Hamburg and it redirects you on google maps with the search ready.

I discovered you can add the same with firefox (❤️)!

Just right click on any search bar and choose the option Add a Keyword for this Search.... Then choose the keyword you are comfortable with.

Mine are:

gi => google images
gm => google maps
yt => youtube

amz => amazon.com
amzde => amazon.de
amzfr => amazon.fr

rotten => rottentomatoes.com
wiki => wikipedia.org
wikifr => wikipedia.fr

trad => WordReference.com

Combined with the tab opener shortcut, it is just blazing fast:

CMD + T
yt eiro nareth

Instead of doing something like:

Open new tab
Search Youtube
Click on the search bar and write your search

Documentation here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-search-from-address-bar

Faster navigation

In the same way as above, it is possible to use a keyword to reach a bookmark.

Let's say I often go to the bitbucket repositories page, and therefore it is in my bookmarks folder. But I decided to hide the bookmarks toolbar because it takes space on the screen.

For example, to access my bitbucket bookmark, it is still possible with just searching repos. Here is how to do it:

Open your bookmarks (With CMD + B)
Right click on one of them
Choose properties option
Add a keyword

From now on, everytime you search this keyword in the search bar it will directly redirect you to your bookmark.

Some of mine:

mailpro => My email address
mail => My normal email

repos => bitbucket repositories
sprint => Sprint dashboard

lastyt => youtube.com/feed/subscriptions