Mozilla Smart Browsing and Integrated Web Searching
The Mozilla browser includes the ability to configure your address bar to significantly reduce the time you spend looking for things on the web. You can use your address bar to interact with a web search engine (like Google) by simply typing in a phrase and clicking "Search". In addition, Mozilla can automatically suggest URLs as you type them, according to rules you set.
Integrated Web Search
You can query a wide variety of Internet search engines by typing keywords into your address bar and clicking "Search". Change the search engine you wish to use by going to Mozilla → Preferences → Navigator → Internet Search and picking a "Default Search Engine" from the drop down menu. You pick whatever search engine you prefer; if you don't know what to choose, we recommend you use Google.
If you browse with your sidebar open, you can set it to hold the search results while you surf the results by selecting "Open the Search Tab in the Sidebar...". Enable advanced viewing in the sidebar by selecting "Advanced" under "Sidebar Search Tab Preferences".
Smart Browsing (Autocomplete)
Mozilla's smart browsing will generate suggested URLs as you type them into the address bar. This can significantly reduce the time you spend getting where you need to go. Enabled by default, you can modify these settings by going to Mozilla → Preferences → Navigator → Smart Browsing.
You can enable Internet Keywords, although we've found they can be more confusing than they are worth. Both "Location Bar Autocomplete" and "Domain Guessing" are enabled by default (and you'll probably want to leave them enabled. To modify the rules for autocompletion, click on "Advanced" (shown below).
If you select "Autocomplete best match as you type" it will insert the closest match into the address bar so you can just hit "Enter" to select the suggested option. Otherwhise, you can use your arrow keys on your keyboard to scroll through the URLs. If you want to limit the amount of suggestions, you might want to enable "Match only websites you've typed previously" which limits the returns to sites you've actually typed into the address bar (not just visited).
Last updated: 8/30/06
