How To Configure Firefox To Use Startpage From The Address Bar

If you are not using Startpage for your online searches yet, and are still using Google, Bing or Yahoo you are either a fool, or you don't feel you have a need for your 4th Amendment rights because the NSA is tracking everything you are searching on those systems. Startpage however serves up Google's awesome search results, but they anonymize you and don't collect your information. Pretty nice right?

One thing I have been doing since I made the switch back to Firefox is changing the default search options in it. It's really easy to add Startpage to the search bar in Firefox, but since I have been a Chrome user for the last few years I've gotten used to typing my search queries in the address bar. By default, Firefox uses Google to handle search via the address bar and we want to avoid that for privacy reasons right?

To change the address bar search in Firefox to use Startpage instead do the following:

•     Type "about:config" in the browser's location bar and hit "Enter"
•     Accept the warning message to be careful
•     Enter "keyword.URL" in the filter on top of the page
•     Double-click on the "keyword.URL" line that shows up
•     In the pop-up window, replace the current string with the link found here:
  
  https://startpage.com/do/search?language=english&cat=web&query=
•     Click "OK"
•     Close the window or tab

Here's a scree shot:

 

Simple right? Now when you perform a search from the address bar you get the results you want with all the Big Brother you don't!