Firefox – the difference between Firefox search engine keywords and bookmark keywords

bookmarksfirefoxkeywordsearch-engines

I know the obvious answer is: One is for search engines and the other is for all kinds of bookmarks. But I'm referring to the "Add a keyword for this search" functionality when right-clicking input fields.

Both give me the possibility to type sth like su windows in the addressbar to perform a Superuser search for a specific query. One time it's using an extra bookmark, the other time it's using a search engine entry.

I found various sites like How-To Geek describing both ways of adding keywords.

However I'm wondering what the actual difference is and which way is preferable. Since my bookmarks get synchronized through Sync and my search engines don't, I don't see any reason to use the search engines at all and could remove the field from the toolbar. Aren't the search-engines just a subset of the bookmark keywords?

Best Answer

I think your observation is correct: two different ways for essentially the same thing.

Advantages for the search field way:

  • The searches added via bookmark can only be used via keyboard shortcuts, while the search fields in the toolbar can also be used when you don’t want to use keyboard shortcuts.

Advantages for the bookmark way:

  • Not all input fields offer OpenSearch, but every input field can be added as a bookmark search.
  • Bookmarks can be synchronized with Firefox Sync, while this currently not possible for the search engines.
  • Bookmarks can be edited more easily: you can change the search URL within the GUI (which allows you to make searches with pre-defined search terms).
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