# Is this a feature of firefox, or has this always worked (typing words in the url... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 20, 2008, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-feature-of-firefox-or-has-this-always-worked-typing-words-in-the-url/457165 "2008-07-20T18:07:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2008, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-feature-of-firefox-or-has-this-always-worked-typing-words-in-the-url/457165/1 "2008-07-20T18:07:44Z")
… takes you straight to a website. Without my brain being switched on I typed these two words into the url bar “bbc iplayer” No www, no http, no .com or anything. just two words. It took me straight to the bbc iplayer website. I have never visited it before on this computer so it’s not pulling it from memory. I guess what it’s doing is secretly doing a search for those two words and then giving me the top item on the list of founds. ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2008, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-feature-of-firefox-or-has-this-always-worked-typing-words-in-the-url/457165/2 "2008-07-20T18:15:16Z")
Hmm that works for me, too, and I can guarantee I’ve never been to the BBC iPlayer site before. Pretty cool! I didn’t know it did that either. ---
**Author:** ![Darryl\_Lict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7cd45c/32.png) [@Darryl\_Lict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darryl_Lict)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2008, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-feature-of-firefox-or-has-this-always-worked-typing-words-in-the-url/457165/3 "2008-07-20T18:31:49Z")
It’s worked that way for as long as I’ve been using it, which is probably about 3 years maybe. ---
**Author:** ![Apex\_Rogers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@Apex\_Rogers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apex_Rogers)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2008, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-feature-of-firefox-or-has-this-always-worked-typing-words-in-the-url/457165/4 "2008-07-20T18:39:08Z")
I believe Firefox queries Google and takes you to the website you would have reached by clicking “I’m Feeling Lucky.” An initial check confirms this with you bbc iplayer example. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2008, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-feature-of-firefox-or-has-this-always-worked-typing-words-in-the-url/457165/5 "2008-07-20T21:36:54Z")
Dangerous thing to do tho if it redirects to a typo URL, or perhaps not even that. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2008, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-feature-of-firefox-or-has-this-always-worked-typing-words-in-the-url/457165/6 "2008-07-20T22:38:30Z")
IE does the same thing, or at least it can. It’s called “search from the address bar”. It was introduced in IE5 in about 2004 IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2008, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-feature-of-firefox-or-has-this-always-worked-typing-words-in-the-url/457165/7 "2008-07-20T23:28:43Z")
It uses some heuristic algorithm which takes you to the I’m feeling lucky if it’s obvious what the result should be or a google search page if it’s ambiguous. ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-feature-of-firefox-or-has-this-always-worked-typing-words-in-the-url/457165/8 "2008-07-21T01:10:24Z")
If you watch the bottom left corner of firefox where it shows what sites it is connecting to (it probably says “done” right now), [google.com](http://google.com) is the first site it shows when you do that, then it changes to bbc. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-feature-of-firefox-or-has-this-always-worked-typing-words-in-the-url/457165/9 "2008-07-21T06:39:14Z")
If you don’t like Firefox doing that, you can change it. Use about:config and change browser.urlbar.richResults from the default True to False, and it will just do a normal search and display the results on the Google page. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-feature-of-firefox-or-has-this-always-worked-typing-words-in-the-url/457165/10 "2008-07-21T13:35:08Z")
[QUOTE=t-bonham@scc.net] If you don’t like Firefox doing that, you can change it. Use about:config and change browser.urlbar.richResults from the default True to False, and it will just do a normal search and display the results on the Google page. [/QUOTE] browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped is a true false. Is that what you meant? ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-feature-of-firefox-or-has-this-always-worked-typing-words-in-the-url/457165/11 "2008-07-21T17:47:37Z")
[QUOTE=Harmonious Discord] browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped is a true false. Is that what you meant? [/QUOTE] Probably. Sometimes those names change during the development period. Also, we’ve been talking about Google as the search engine. That’s the default one, but that too can be changed if you prefer a different one.