Simon Willison’s Weblog

Firebird URL shortcut tips

I’ve been using these for ages, but in case you haven’t heard about them here are some handy shortcuts involving Firebird’s URL bar:

• Enter a word (or several words) and hit Enter; Firebird runs a Google “I’m feeling lucky” search thus redirecting you to the top result. Great for sites you can’t remember the URL for, such as “Thunderbird Help”.
• Enter a word and hit Ctrl+Enter; Firebird adds www. to the start and .com to the end and takes you to that site.
• Enter a word and hit Shift+Enter; Firebird takes you to the .net domain.
• Enter a word and hit Ctrl+Shift+Enter; Firebird takes you to the .org domain.
• Also, hitting Alt+Enter (or Alt+any of the above) opens a new tab with that URL in it.

Finally, Ctrl+K focuses you on the quick search box at the top, and F6 or Alt+D jump you to the URL bar itself.

Check out Firebird Help for the definitive list of keyboard shortcuts and mouse shortcuts.