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I'm using the Googlebar Lite addon for years now. One feature I especially like is its displaying the search terms on the bar itself (in that crazy screenshot taken from the Mozilla site: the "firefox" term at the end; the second screenshot better demonstrates it), and when you click it, basically initializes an on-page search for the clicked term. Very convenient when examining pages behind result links, especially longer ones.

Googlebar Lite

Unfortunately, that addon is limited to Google. I'm looking for something comparable, which also works with other search engines (e.g. DuckDuckGo). It does not need to have all of the other bells and whistles (feeling ducky, all those other icons on the bar, etc.).

GBL

What it basically should support:

  • multiple search engines, at minimum Google + DuckDuckGo (optional: let the user configure more search engines)
  • display search items on the bar to be clicked for an "emulated Ctrl+F"
  • possibility to start different searches by key-kombos (e.g. Ctrl+Enter for a picture search, Alt+Enter for a map search), ideally user-definable
  • drop-down with all possible search actions (including the ones from previous item). Ideally, user can select which of them should be active/visible here (to keep the list clean)
  • possibility to easily switch between search engines
  • possibility to open searches in a new tab
  • when offering additional icons on the search bar (feeling ducky etc.), I want to be able to deactivate that (need the space for the search terms to click ;)
  • possibility to hide that (additional) search bar (as it's possible with Googlebar Lite)

Nice-to-haves:

  • privacy stuff (e.g. disabling caching/history, if there's any)
  • easy-access to search-engine specific functionality (like DuckDuckGo's !bangs, or switching off Google's auto-correct)

No-Gos:

  • bloatware additions
  • tracking additions
  • other adware "features" (oh, maybe you want to buy that at... No, thanks!)

Also accepted: Ways to enhance Googlebar Lite with support for additional search engines ;)

Postscriptum 2017-06-19: With the addon not e10s (multi-process) compatible and being discontinued (so no chance it will ever become e10s compatible), I'm even open to suggestions just resembling the very one but being actively maintained and e10s compatible.

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    I'm curious - what does this offer over the standard search option/one bar to rule them all ?
    – Journeyman Geek
    Feb 14, 2014 at 1:39
  • @JourneymanGeek Read my question :) Especially where relating to those screenshots: what you enter as search terms, get's placed on that bar. You e.g. have 5 terms there, now open a link from the results, and simply click on those search-terms to jump to where they appear on that page – instead of having to Ctrl-F for each of the terms separately on each link opened. First paragraph of my question. Do I need to re-phrase, or did you just miss it? Maybe I was a bit unclear?
    – Izzy ♦
    Feb 14, 2014 at 8:53
  • Naw, just curious in terms of the advantages, rather than what it did
    – Journeyman Geek
    Feb 14, 2014 at 9:00
  • A lot faster to simply click on 3 terms on each newly opened page, than using Ctrl-F-FillInSearchterm repeatedly? ;) When you search a lot, this comes in pretty handy. When you just do one search a week, you might live without it.
    – Izzy ♦
    Feb 14, 2014 at 9:06

1 Answer 1

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In case anyone is still in need for some support in locale searching:

I am using "SearchWP" for many years now. It was last updated in 2016 but that does not matter.
It is a neat little add-on which does what it should do. It extends the default search field of Firefox to mark the different search phrases within it. Therefor it also "works with" every configured search engine. It introduces a button to mark all occurrences in the shown page in multiple colours. You can click on the coloured phrases to go to each next occurrence.

There are no key-combinations for special features since this would only make sense for Google's different search services.

Since Mozilla discarded most of the add-ons from there official website SearchWP is not found so easily nowadays.
Here you can find all versions: https://legacycollector.org/firefox-addons/376/index.html

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  • Thanks, that indeed covers a good part of what I asked for. As I'm using Waterfox, I even can use it though it's most likely no web extension. A pity it's no longer maintained. // As for "special key combos": they'd well make sense. Some other search engines also offer text, images, maps. And even if not, e.g. "enter" could open a startpage text search, while shift-enter could open an OSM map search, etc :) // +1 meanwhile :)
    – Izzy ♦
    Mar 25, 2019 at 21:57

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