To connect to the Internet, many users use Firefox as an alternative to Chrome, which, despite its popularity, is not liked by everyone. One of the most daily tasks that we do with our browser is to search for pages that we want to visit, for which we usually use the Google search engine, the most powerful. If that is our case, we must know that the Mozilla browser has various extensions that allow us to get more out of our Internet searches.
And it is that, despite the benefits of the Google search engine, we are not always able to obtain the best and most accurate results in our searches. In addition, there are other alternative search engines, which are not capable of offering the same level of results. That is why the developers have created their own add-ons for Firefox, so that we can carry out our searches with a higher rate of efficiency and precision.
Tips to search correctly on the Internet
Searching for all kinds of content on the Internet can be a frustrating task. The moment we enter a keyword or phrase in our favorite search engine, we are presented with a large amount of content that is often irrelevant and does not correspond to our search intention. That is why it is important that we are able to refine our search in order to really obtain the desired result. For this we can carry out these tips:
- Vary between search engines : it is true that Google is the search engine that offers the best results, but if we do not manage to find what we are looking for, we can choose others such as Yahoo!, DuckDuckGo, Dogpile or Ecosia, among others, to try, the same surprises us.
- Use very specific keywords : when we talk about keywords we are referring to the terms that we usually use to search and find the desired content on the Internet. Therefore, we must try to make them as accurate as possible, to help the search engine obtain the information and results we want.
- Use quotes : if we include a search term between quotes, the search engine will take care of searching for that specific word or phrase, so it limits the results. If we search for several words without quotes, the search engine will show us results for all the words separately, so we will surely find results that have nothing to do with what we are looking for.
- Avoid useless words : we must eliminate confusing or misleading terms in our search using a hyphen. When inserted, immediately before typing a word, it is excluded from the search.
In this way, with these small guidelines we will surely be able to improve the searches that we carry out on the Internet, obtaining results that are more in line with what we need to find.
Firefox addons to improve searches
Next, we are going to see different extensions for Mozilla Firefox that we can install to improve our searches carried out from the browser.
SearchPreview, displays a preview of the page
We are talking about an add-on that appears as Recommended, within the Firefox add-ons page itself. With it we will be able to retrieve the preview image of any page to see its content without having to click on its link, being compatible with search engines such as Google or DuckDuckGo. It also offers support for Yahoo! and Bing, although it is possible that we can find bugs and instability in these cases.
Its operation is very simple, because when performing a search, we will see the thumbnails along with the results. The extension does not include any other element or icon in the task bar, so it is ideal if we have a bar full of elements. In addition, it has a popularity bar to know the impact of the search. We can free download SearchPreview .
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SearchPreview
Developer: Edward Ackroyd
TinEye Reverse Image Search, compare images to find differences
We are talking about a tool that should be considered essential along with the tools of each web browser. TinEye is a reverse image search engine that allows us to search by image. It uses an identification technology through images and not keywords. This way, when we upload an image to TinEye, it will take care of creating a unique digital signature for it and will take care of comparing it with another image in its index to find matches .
It usually stands out for finding exact images and not similar ones. We will be able to know the license of the image informing us if it is available on free image websites. It also makes it easy for us to start image searches, through a new entry that is added to the right-click context menu in our browser. We can download TinEye for free .
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TinEye Reverse Image Search
Developer: TinEye
GIPHY for Firefox, Instant GIF Searches
If we like to use animated GIFs to communicate with each other, this extension allows us to have a GIF search engine , to be able to add them to our emails on Gmail, Facebook, Twitter and other pages. We simply have to search, drag and drop, copy its URL link or right-click. By using it, we are going to save ourselves a good amount of time finding GIFs just by typing a few keywords.
In addition, from the pop-up window that shows the extension we will also be able to show those GIFs that are in fashion and are the most popular that we can use whenever we need. We can download it from the Firefox Add-on Store .
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GIPHY for Firefox
Developer: GIPHY
Context Search, search in any search engine
With this plugin we will be able to search the selected text using our preferred search engines. We simply have to right-click or Alt + click on the selected text to respectively launch the context menu where it shows us a list with different search engines . We just have to click on the desired search engine with which we want to search the text. Search results appear on the extension’s preferences page. It also allows us to perform searches using keywords in the URL address bar.
The extension also allows us to manage our favorite search engines from its Preferences section. Also. we will be able to import a JSON file containing our own list of search engines. In order to use this add-on it will be necessary to have at least version 62 of Firefox or higher. We can download Context Search from the Firefox website.
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Context Search
Developer: Olivier de Broqueville
Google Scholar button, ideal for students
By using this extension, a button is added to Firefox from which you can access the searches and results of the Google Scholar search engine from any web page. This is focused on the search for content and scientific-academic bibliographies, so it is especially focused on the school environment. Through its use we will be able to find text both on the Internet and in our university library. We simply have to select the title or article of the page we are reading and click on the extension to find it.
In addition, we can apply citation styles to our preferred format so that they can be copied and pasted automatically to our document, as well as transfer our query to the Google website. Download Google Scholar Button .
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Google Scholar Button
Developer: Alex Verstak, Google
Google Similar Sites, find similar pages
This complement can be useful in the event that we need to find pages on a specific topic on which it is difficult for us to carry out a specific search on Google, or in the event that we are seeing content that we like on a page and we want to see similar ones on the same content . Through its use, we can opt to preview and explore other pages that have content that interests us.
Simply, when we are on a page that interests us, we click on the extension button and this will make similar pages appear to us in the eyes of Google, which we can access with a simple click. Download Google Similar Pages from Firefox Browser Add-ons .
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Google Similar Sites
Developer: Patrick
Simple Search, return to traditional searches
We are talking about an extension to perform simple searches in a similar way to how web searches used to be before, where treasonous results were highlighted over sponsored ones . in the event that we perform a search with Bing or Google with the simple search function enabled, we will get a clear and uncluttered list of results, without any of the distractions of ads, info boxes or sponsored results links.
Simplified search results will appear just above the standard results, so whether you want to be able to see the original page quickly, or do your web search the old-fashioned way. We can download it from the Firefox Store .