[LINK] Why does Firefox send non-URL text in the location bar to Google etc.?

[David Goldstein]

What's so scary about people not using URLs or bookmarks?



----- Original Message ----
> From: Alex (Maxious) Sadleir <maxious at gmail.com>
> To: Link mailing list <link at anu.edu.au>
> Sent: Mon, 3 January, 2011 7:25:57 PM
> Subject: Re: [LINK] Why does Firefox send non-URL text in the location bar to 
>Google etc.?
> 
> On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 3:47 PM, Robin Whittle <rw at firstpr.com.au> wrote:
> > If most people don't know, or don't care about information leakage
> > like this, then its a worry.  I didn't know about it and at present I
> > don't know how to stop it.
> A scary number of people don't even use URLs or bookmarks - they just
> type the words "facebook login" into their address bar/search engine
> and click on the first result. Unfortunately at some point that first
> result changed from facebook.com and instead pointed to a popular blog
> as they document here:
> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_google_failed_internet_meme.php
> 
> > I couldn't find where in the settings for Firefox to control this
> > pernicious behaviour.
> Firefox hides a lot of power user settings under a special URL
> "about:config" so as to not unnecessarily confuse the above mentioned
> demographic.
> To disable the "keyword search" feature:
> 1. Enter "about:config" into the Firefox address bar, hit enter, and
> accept the warning message that appears
> 2. Enter "keyword" into the "Filter:" box
> 3. Double click on the preference "keyword.enable" so it's value
> changes to "false".
> If an invalid URL is entered (has spaces etc.), instead of a Google
> search being launched the message "The URL is not valid and cannot be
> loaded." will appear. If a single word is entered Firefox will attempt
> to access http://www.word.com  (eg "facebook" becomes
> http://www.facebook.com). You can also alter the URL (preference name
> "keyword.URL") to point to an alternative search engine, as the Yahoo
> toolbar does. The keywords are appended to the URL specified.
> 
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