# firefox question - auto searching **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 21, 2006, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-question-auto-searching/349304 "2006-03-21T17:22:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-question-auto-searching/349304/1 "2006-03-21T17:22:07Z")
At my company we have a webpage setup that contains links which don’t have the full URL for the link: [http://link1/cgi-bin/rpt1.cgi](http://link1/cgi-bin/rpt1.cgi) If I enter [http://link1.az.mycomp.com/cgi-bin/rpt1.cgi](http://link1.az.mycomp.com/cgi-bin/rpt1.cgi) I go to the correct location. Firefox is then taking me to a completely other place on the WWW that has nothing to do with my company’s internal sites but instead looks like I’ve been directed to the first “hit” it got from doing some sort of a search on “link1”. First, how do I get firefox to autocomplete link1 to be [link1.az.mycomp.com](http://link1.az.mycomp.com)? Second, how do I get firefox to NOT do this searching for unknown urls? I’ve looked through about:config and the closest thing I found was browser.fixup.alternate.suffix but that didn’t seem to do the trick (browser.fixup.altnerate.enabled is set to true). I’ve also set browser.gobrowsing.enabled to false in the hopes of disabling the auto-search feature but that didn’t seem to do anything, either. ---
**Author:** ![Omphaloskeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bcef8e/32.png) [@Omphaloskeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omphaloskeptic)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-question-auto-searching/349304/2 "2006-03-21T20:15:05Z")
I don’t have any real answers: I haven’t found a setting in my version of Mozilla that gives the behavior you’re getting, and when I change browser.fixup.alternate.suffix it does do the link translation you want (but make sure you also set browser.fixup.alternate.prefix to a null string, or you’ll be looking for [www.link1.az.mycomp.com](http://www.link1.az.mycomp.com)). What version are you using? This behavior does sound something like Internet Keywords. On newer versions this is controlled by keyword.enabled and keyword.URL, and only affects text typed into the location bar ([Internet Keywords](http://www.mozilla.org/docs/end-user/internet-keywords.html)), but older versions might have used this lookup more generally (and used the key browser.goBrowsing.enabled that you modified). If you can find out what search engine is used for the mapping (e.g., by watching the HTTP traffic with Ethereal) you can sort about:config by value and see if any of the values match that search webpage. Do you have any extensions or plugins that affect searching? As a hack, you could write a JavaScript applet to traverse the document and replace all //link1/ URLs with real addresses… Is there any good reason that the web pages don’t have real URLs? ---
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-question-auto-searching/349304/3 "2006-03-21T22:44:45Z")
I’m on version 1.0.7 over firefox. I changed browser.fixup.alternate.prefix to null but it still didn’t work. I also tried changing keyword.enabled to off but once again I’m still not getting there. Are the changed made in about:config immediate? Or do I need to shutdown firefox and restart? I have been shutting down and restarting just to be sure. ---
**Author:** ![Omphaloskeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bcef8e/32.png) [@Omphaloskeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omphaloskeptic)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-question-auto-searching/349304/4 "2006-03-21T23:23:53Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > I’m on version 1.0.7 over firefox. > > I changed browser.fixup.alternate.prefix to null but it still didn’t work. I also tried changing keyword.enabled to off but once again I’m still not getting there. > > Are the changed made in about:config immediate? Or do I need to shutdown firefox and restart? I have been shutting down and restarting just to be sure. Most changes take effect immediately (the browser.fixup.\* ones did when I tried them). I found a relevant [Bugzilla bug report](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=310826); you might want to browse that (and its clones) to see if something will help. 1.0.7 is pretty old, too–aren’t they on 1.5 now? Newer versions may behave more sanely. (Mine, Mozilla 1.7.something, seems to do what you want it to do.) ---
**Author:** ![duality72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duality72/32/3910_2.png) [@duality72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duality72)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-question-auto-searching/349304/5 "2006-03-21T23:27:55Z")
This is almost certainly a DNS resolution problem with your network, not Firefox. Simply put(?), your computer can’t resolve the address for link1. To verify this, you can open up a command prompt and run the command ‘ping link1’. If it doesn’t come back saying something like “Pinging [link1.az.mycomp.com](http://link1.az.mycomp.com) [xxx.xxx.xxx.xx]…”, Firefox (via your computer) can’t resolve the address appropriately and doesn’t know what to connect to. This is the problem you really want to fix, so ask your network admin. The rest of what you’re seeing is that Firefox and all modern web browsers have various ways they try to ‘fix’ the URL for you if they couldn’t resolve an address from it. Some try appending suffixes and prefixes to the server name you entered, so link1 will become [www.link1.com](http://www.link1.com), then when that doesn’t work it will try [www.link1.net](http://www.link1.net), and so on. Some use what you enter as a keyword into a preset search site and bring up its search results. Some bring up the first search result, assuming it’s the most likely candidate for where you were trying to go. Anyway, if the DNS resolution worked in the first place, you wouldn’t be getting any of that, but there you go. ---
**Author:** ![carterba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85e7bf/32.png) [@carterba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carterba)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-question-auto-searching/349304/6 "2006-03-21T23:29:24Z")
I don’t think this is a Firefox problem. It sounds to me like your search domain isn’t set. Is this Windows XP? If so, go to Start-\>Run and type “cmd”. This will bring up a command prompt. Type “ping [link1.az.mycomp.com](http://link1.az.mycomp.com)”. Then try “ping link1”. The first command should tell you the IP address of link1. If the second command times out, it’s a search domain problem. If this is Windows XP, and if you have permission, you can fix it by going to Control Panel-\>Network Connections. Right click on your connection, click “Properties”. Find the TCP/IP connection, select it, and click “Properties”. Click “Advanced”, go to the “DNS” tab, select “Append these DNS suffixes” and add “[az.mycomp.com](http://az.mycomp.com)” to the list. I’m by no means an expert on this kind of thing, so take my advice with a grain of salt. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-question-auto-searching/349304/7 "2006-03-22T01:20:42Z")
Here’s what I think your problem is. Whoever set up your internal site set it up with Internet Explorer in mind. At my school, our attendance web page is accessed by typing in “[http://hawk/faweb](http://hawk/faweb)” Now this looks like a normal web address, but it isn’t. “hawk” is the shared name of one of our local servers, and “faweb” is a folder on that server. “//hawk/faweb” is a Windows network path (if you ever map a network drive, you see this notation in the dialog box when you start the process), not a valid URL for general web use. Internet Explorer can use the address though, because IE and Windows Explorer are the same program\*. It was part of Microsoft’s plan to squeeze other browsers out of the market completely, and part of basis for the Anti-Trust suit against them. Your “link1” is the internal name of one of your servers, and the rest is nested folders and files within that server. Firefox, not having access to the same Networking resources that Microsoft Windows can give to Microsoft Internet Explorer, can’t resolve your networking name with an actual address. Whoever designed your internal site, whether intentionally or not, designed for exclusive use with IE on a Windows network. \*Fun Self-Demo if you didn’t knowthis already: open “My Documents”, and in the blank at the top for the filepath, type in a full web address, like “[http://www.google.com](http://www.google.com)”. Your Explorer Window transforms into an IE window. No firing up of external software, because they are not separate from each other. ---
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-question-auto-searching/349304/8 "2006-03-22T18:46:20Z")
**scotandrsn** seems to have nailed it. I tried to ping link1 and it came back without a problem. I can access the site in IE without any problems as well. In other words, it appears it really was designed specifically for IE use. Is there a way to resolve this or am I just stuck bookmarking [link1.az.mycomp.com](http://link1.az.mycomp.com) as a work around? ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-question-auto-searching/349304/9 "2006-03-22T19:09:53Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > **scotandrsn** seems to have nailed it. > > I tried to ping link1 and it came back without a problem. I can access the site in IE without any problems as well. In other words, it appears it really was designed specifically for IE use. Is there a way to resolve this or am I just stuck bookmarking [link1.az.mycomp.com](http://link1.az.mycomp.com) as a work around? Actually I was forgetting that on our system, I CAN get to the page with Firefox, but a script prints a message that it’s best viewed in IE, and the functions of the page don’t work. I don’t get the random link redirect problem you seem to be getting, although it could be scritped into the source code for the site. Have you checked into that? ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-question-auto-searching/349304/10 "2006-03-22T19:43:27Z")
Wait a sec. You can ping it but Firefox doesn’t find it? I thought both use the same mechanism to resolve server names. In any case, I use firefox all the time to access my internal test web server, with the address format [http://mywebserver/mysite/index.htm](http://mywebserver/mysite/index.htm) However, I do have mywebserver set up in my hosts file, so maybe that’s what makes it work. Try editing your hosts file (typically found in C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\Etc) and add an entry for “link1”. Use the results of running ping to see what the IP should be. ---
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-question-auto-searching/349304/11 "2006-03-22T23:50:00Z")
You are correct that I can ping it but Firefox doesn’t find it. I can enter the IP address returned by ping into the Firefox address bar and I go to the correct page. I’ve looked at my hosts file and it has an entry for the correct IP address for link1. ---
**Author:** ![Omphaloskeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bcef8e/32.png) [@Omphaloskeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omphaloskeptic)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-question-auto-searching/349304/12 "2006-03-23T01:58:14Z")
> [@scotandrsn](#): > > Here’s what I think your problem is. Whoever set up your internal site set it up with Internet Explorer in mind. Good thought. I couldn’t figure out why the links would be so mangled, but that makes sense. > [@Ponder Stibbons](#): > > Wait a sec. You can ping it but Firefox doesn’t find it? I thought both use the same mechanism to resolve server names. When given a plain name (no dot separators) ping assumes it’s a host in the current domain: If you’re at [a.foo.com](http://a.foo.com) and you “ping b”, ping performs a DNS query for “[b.foo.com](http://b.foo.com)”, not “b” (empirically tested with Ethereal). If you comment out the “#.#.#.# link1” line in /etc/hosts, but leave in the “#.#.#.# [link1.az.mycomp.com](http://link1.az.mycomp.com)”, I believe that ping will still find it (mine does). URLs are supposed to have full domain names (if they have any at all), though. However, if your /etc/hosts file has the “#.#.#.# link1” line then Firefox should (and mine does) resolve that. I still think your original suspicion must be correct: Firefox is probably trying to guess the proper hostname by doing an “I’m Feeling Lucky” search or similar. I don’t think this is the default behavior for current versions, but for 1.0.7 it is enabled by default. I looked at the Firefox 1.0.7 source, and it looks like although “browser.goBrowsing.enabled” is still a key in the config file it no longer does anything; only “keyword.enabled” is checked. You’ve set this to boolean false, right? Is your “keyword.URL” set to its default of (something like) “[http://www.google.com/search?btnI=I’m+Feeling+Lucky&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=](http://www.google.com/search?btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=)”? Try setting that to something else, or deleting it, to see if that changes the behavior you see.