Address and search bar behaviour like in Firefox 1.5

[Kiwis]

Is there a possibility for an option to make it so that words entered into the address bar are always searched by your "default search engine", regardless of what the one you have selected in the search bar is?

I'm not suggesting the other behaviour of the browser guessing, and taking you directly to the IMDB page if you enter "Titanic".

[Moonchild]

No, because searching from the address bar will always use (by design) the actively selected search engine in the search bar.
For that matter, was Web searching from the address bar even a thing in Firefox 1.5? I'm not sure... maybe some people more familiar with Firefox predating any of our efforts have an answer to that.

I do believe there are extensions that allow you to select different search engines for search box and keyword search from the address bar but I'm not sure if any of them have been forked (yet).

[Kiwis]

No, because searching from the address bar will always use (by design) the actively selected search engine in the search bar.

Ah, okay. I suppose the only purpose for having two different bars is having URL suggestions in the address bar and keyword suggestions in the search bar?

For that matter, was Web searching from the address bar even a thing in Firefox 1.5? I'm not sure... maybe some people more familiar with Firefox predating any of our efforts have an answer to that.

Yeah, I even downloaded 1.5 now to make sure I remembered correctly If you typed a few words, Firefox guessed which website you wanted to visit, and if it didn't have an idea, it sent you to your selected default search engine. I was so used to having Altavista permanently, but Wikipedia always ready for school work, when they changed it to how it's like in Pale Moon around Firefox 3, and I had to start switching back and forth between search engines. Oh well, Pale Moon has every other feature I loved about old Firefox. And some new ones. Thank you for all the hard work!

I do believe there are extensions that allow you to select different search engines for search box and keyword search from the address bar but I'm not sure if any of them have been forked (yet).

Cool, I'll keep a lookout.

[Moonchild]

Ah, okay. I suppose the only purpose for having two different bars is having URL suggestions in the address bar and keyword suggestions in the search bar?

No, there are 2 different bars because they have distinctly different functions. The fact that you can use keyword searches from the address bar is a (IMHO misguided) conception we've kept because Firefox has made that compromise early on and users have the desire to use a single bar. However, this multi-purpose approach to a single bar has a number of inherent problems in terms of intuitiveness and functional limitations, which is why we won't expand on keyword searches from the address bar and keep the option available to not search from it at all, if users don't want it.
"suggestions" are not very practical if they compromise your privacy as well, keep that in mind. This is why we don't use keyword search suggestions from the address bar as it would compromise user privacy by sending any typed or pasted domain names also to the search engine straight away providing a full record of domains and/or URLs visited to the search engine (a significant difference from what you describe of the old functionality in Firefox 1.5 where searches apparently were launched but only after trying to first fix up the URL, similar to what we do for keyword searches).

All of that is besides the point for the topic though. Separate search engines for address bar and search bar are simply not part of our design scope, on purpose. Extensions taking over keyword search from the address bar will be your only solution for your desired workflow.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

Browsers pulled that shit back in the day for ONE TRUE reason. AOL. A lot of AOL Keyword: Morons were getting broadband and the ones who didn't keep using AOL's client (and still paying $23.95 a month for no reason for years afterword) were used to this.

AOL owned Netscape and current and former Netscape people and search engine funding was still the majority driving factor of Mozilla's decisions and one was to entice former AOL users to use Firefox (and genetate revenue) by keeping the habit alive once the suite fell out of fasion.

So there you go. AOL bullshit still haunts us to this day and has even seen a resurgence in the form of the Google Web.

[moonbat]

AOL is practically sweet and innocent compared to its successor, Facebook+Google.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

I think there are a lot of similarities just have different approaches. AOL gradually opened up from its internal services and content to the world wide web but Google is trying to close it all back up and lock you into an internet ghetto with the trappings of a walled garden utopia.

If not with its own services than its technology (defining and redefining everything for everybody) with their obedient "partners" providing false choices of just who you want to call master, today.