Firefox: A Browser Built for Search

[Chris Sherman]

This week, I've put my searcher hat on, and am doing an in-depth series of articles about Mozilla Firefox (http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3431931), which by all rights should be an Internet Explorer killer. The browser is cross-platform, has built-in pop-up blocking, isn't vulnerable to the kinds of attacks that besiege IE, and is free. In short, it's cool, very cool.

In today's article, I focus on the browser's built-in search tools, which let you search Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay and Dictionary.com directly from the browser. There are also a ton of other free search plugins, including a couple of Google Toolbar clones, among others.

Anyone else have any favorite Firefox plugins or extensions you'd like to share with the rest of us?

[Chndru]

http://www.google.com/firefox

this is the default start page for a fresh install.

[brintoul]

Try installing "LookAhead". I think it's good.

[edwardv2]

Anyone else have any favorite Firefox plugins or extensions you'd like to share with the rest of us?

Chris, I personally like the Firefox toolbar by Ultra (http://www.firefoxtoolbar.com/). It lets me choose from most of the major search sites as well as adding my own.

There are many others that I use on a regular basis; too many to mention. One that I will mention though is SmartSearch (http://www.bengoodger.com/software/smartsearch/) Ben Goodger is the lead engineer for Fiurefox and was mentioned in an article in USA Today in the Money section this week (http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2004-11-09-firefox-cover_x.htm). It works very well with Mycroft, allowing you to select text and then perform a search using that text on any of the search engines installed within Mycroft.

One note though, most of my favorite plugins get disabled when you try to run and install the Firefox 1.0 final release version. They work fine with the preview but are disabled in the final release. Guess I'll stick with the 1.0pr until all the plugins I use on a daily basis get updated.

[rjengineer]

Anyone else have any favorite Firefox plugins or extensions you'd like to share with the rest of us?

Try http://www.nutritiondata.com/firefox-plugin.html
(Search plugin that finds nutritional information about any food.)

[suely]

Stumble Upon is my favourite - http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/extensions/stumbleupon/stumbleupon-1.9992-fx+mz.xpi

[Jill Whalen]

If you post in forums, BBCode (http://jedbrown.net/1.0/mozilla/extensions/) is a must have!

[chesss]

Just wanted to add that if there is one browser that is made for searching it has to be 'Opera' .
Many reasons for this, my favourite is the ease at which i can add any search engine through a program called opsed or by manually editing search.ini, so i am not restricted by plugins.
Then there many 'ways' in which searching can be done - voice commands, keyboard shortcuts , doubleclick a word to get a search menu, from the address bar "g searchterm" , search panel, buttons, and the obvious google search box.

There is also a method where i can search multiple sites at on go. I'll around for it if anyones interested.

http://nontroppo.org/wiki/SearchPlugins - plugins for adding search(drag and drop fields and buttons)

http://nontroppo.org/wiki/OpSED - highly recommended

http://nontroppo.org/wiki/SearchInOpera - how to edit search.ini

HTH