Introduction: Increase Productivity With Keyword Bookmarks

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Here I'll show you how to make use of an often neglected functionality in Firefox, keyword bookmarks.Used correctly, they can eliminate many of the annoyances of everyday web browsing and make using online services more convenient.

Step 1: Basic Keyword Bookmarks

To begin using keywords in Firefox, you need to set a bookmark for the page that you want to use the keyword with. In this example, I'm modifying my bookmark that points to engadget.com from my bookmarks toolbar.

When you add a bookmark, it's as simple as typing the keyword into the "Keyword" section of the window. Here, I've used "engad".

Now, when I type the word "engad" into the address bar, Firefox will go straight to engadget.

Step 2: Searching With Keyword Bookmarks

Another cool feature of keywords is that you can use them to input text to a form on a webpage. In this example, I've used the search on Wikipedia to allow me to search it from the address bar.

To do this, right click on the field that you want to add your keyword to, and click "Add a keyword for this search". Then enter the name of the page (Not massively important but it helps keep your bookmarks organised) and enter the keyword for the search, in my case, "wiki".

Now when I type "wiki searchingforsomething" Firefox will search Wikipedia for "searchingforsomething". This can be useful because you can use your address bar instead of the Search bar, and hide the search bar, allowing more screen real estate.

Step 3: Taking It a Step Further

The next thing you can do isn't exactly an intended feature, but I find it useful. You can use keywords in the address bar to log in to your favourite web service or website, in my case I'll be logging into my Google account.

To do this, you must have logged in before and had the page remember your email address or username, so that when you visit the page it is already shown in the appropriate field. Now, right click on the "Password" field of the page and click "Add a keyword for this search". Type in an appropriate keyword, I used "login" and click OK.

Now when I type in "login" followed by my password, it logs me in to my Google account.

Step 4: Make It Really Clever

This is something I figured out today. I like to download YouTube videos using a web service. There are tons of them available, but I like vixy.net because it converts the .flv format of the video to another format of your choosing.

Navigate to your preferred site and add the keyword as you would to search with Google or Wikipedia. I used "download" as it is obvious.

Now, navigate to a YouTube video of your choosing.

To download the video, all you need to do is click at the beginning of the URL of the YouTube video in the address bar and type "download" before it and hit enter. This will take you to your web service and will either start your download or ask you to configure the options of your download, just as it would if you had typed it in to the website yourself.

Thats it for now, please leave a comment if you find something else cool that you can do using keywords.