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It's the perfect setup really, you can turn it off, but if you want it you can type "? <search term>" into the address bar and it'll go to default search - or use one of your engine short codes as the first word "@google hackernews"

about:config -> keyword.enabled -> false (to stop sending possible search terms automatically to your default search engine, this includes when you type a URL firefox mistakes for a search term)

about:config -> browser.fixup.alternate.enabled -> false (to stop firefox trying a DNS lookup/connection with the term you typed with www. before, .com after)

1 comments

This is something... but it isn't perfect. The address bar is still not purely an address bar. It still defaults to sending a query to a search engine (I like to use this to search for partial URL matches, for example, navigating git repos that I use frequently). That's what the search bar is for. Bah humbug. Even with all these options set, FF still encourages confusion between URLs and searching.

I'm not sure I understand.. there's an internal search (tabs, history, bookmarks) which sounds like what you're doing - there's no search engine used for this. Or do you mean the Search suggestions (Settings -> Search -> uncheck "Provide search suggestions" to disable, some of these suggestions are FF generated)