[SOLVED] Firefox localisation

[bra|10n]

There used to be a means to set the address bar to search for results set by location. It appears this option has been dropped from Firefox of late.

I found this thread from Mozilla kind of avoiding the subject.

Any local wisdom on how to achieve this?

[Ole Juul]

There used to be a means to set the address bar to search for results set by location. It appears this option has been dropped from Firefox of late.

I found this thread from Mozilla kind of avoiding the subject.

Any local wisdom on how to achieve this?

I think this would be up to the search engine and not the browser.

Using Google I can get a "Search near" box at the bottom on the left. I've never used it, and as it stands if I (for example) go to google.dk and search for a name that I know to be local to this area of Canada, I get much (but not exactly) the same results. I think Google likes to control what they give you. When I set the location to some Canadian town, it says "Please enter a valid Danmark city or zip code". When using google.ca it suggests "pages from Canada". Anyway, if you use other search engines you would be dependent on them for results.

Ixquick has a "Country" choice that doesn't look relevant here, but DuckDuckGo has a "Region" in the settings which says "Boosts results from the region." and that looks quite useful.

[bra|10n]

I think this would be up to the search engine and not the browser.

Well yes. But it seems there is now no way to change the default search engine in Firefox from google.com, i.e for searches via the address bar.

The string "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en-au&q=" entered into keyword-url via about:config should do the trick. I have English-AU installed as a preferred language and have cleared all previous cookies.

The cookies S.R mentions here still refer to google.com.

[rms]

You can add google.com.au into your search bar. If that is not enough and you want to make it a default search engine when you type something into address bar, you can also modify browser.search.defaultenginename to reflect the name you've given to google.com.au search.

Edit: forgot to say, you'll need Add To Search addon to achieve the above.

[bra|10n]

Thanks rms for your reply.

I don't see the need for another addon in a situation like this and I'd already had browser.search.defaultenginename set to Google Australia but this on it's own did not work for me.

This is how I managed to achieve this after adding the preferred search engine from here. If you install from this site there is a checkbox "Start using it right away?" This changes browser.search.defaultenginename to your selection. At this point I thought this was all I needed, but after clearing all cookies and restarting Firefox the cookies left by Google were still google.com, with none from google.com.au. as I anticipated.

I then changed via about:config the following: browser.search.defaultenginename, browser.search.order.1, browser.search.selectedEngine to reflect Google Australia and went through the process again of deleting cookies and restarting Firefox. Checking the cookie deposit I now find 1 cookie from google.com (PREF) and now 2 cookies from google.com.au (NID) and (PREF). (SNID) that S.R mentions here strangely does not appear.

[rms]

I've added "Google Australia - from Australia" from mozdev, to try, and strangely enough it didn't change the value of browser.search.defaultenginename for me so I had to enter it manually but once I did, there was nothing else for me to change.

Anyway, glad you've got it sorted.

[bra|10n]

@rms
Would be interested in your 1st search result for "SCU' from the address bar in that case... IYDM

[rms]

Does it match?

[bra|10n]

Indeed it does!

Thank you rms for taking the time to do that.
cheers