Help:Searching from a web browser

For information about using Wikipedia's search engine, see Help:Searching § Search engine features.

For a tutorial on using search engines, and information on other Internet research tools, see Wikipedia:Search engine test.

This page details how to setup the ability to search Wikipedia from within your Web browser's search box. These browsers support the OpenSearch standard. Some browsers support the Wikipedia search engine plugin by default.

To get Wikipedia search results while on any web page, you can temporarily set your browser's (web-based) search box to interface the Wikipedia search engine and land on Wikipedia's the search results page. This trick removes the need to first navigate to Wikipedia from a web page, and then do the search or navigation. It is a is temporary change, and then you put it back to your preferred web-search engine.

Say while on some web page, you decide to research, at Wikipedia, material on that web page. You change your web-search box to "Wikipedia (en)", and enter the page name or the query while on that web page. The other example is that you decide to contribute information from the web to Wikipedia. Furthermore, you can reach all twelve sister projects the same way. For example, you can go straight to a Wiktionary entry by using the prefix wikt: from your web-search box.

Avant and Orca

The Avant and Orca browsers support quick searching from the address bar. You can access the settings in the "Search Engine" dialog of the browser's options. There, you will be presented with two tabs: in the "Quick Search" tab, simply click "Add", type a keyword and press Enter, type the URL string ending in %s (the same as in Mozilla/Firefox) and press Enter again.

Chrome

Chrome's address bar can be configured to search Wikipedia.

1. Click the Chrome menu.
2. Select: Preferences on Mac and Linux, or Settings on Windows or Chrome OS.
3. Under Search, select Manage Search Engines.
4. Under Other Search Engines, add Wikipedia by entering a name and keyword.
   • You will use the keyword to select Wikipedia as the search engine from the address bar.
5. Enter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/%s as the URL.
   • NB. Wikipedia may be automatically suggested under Other Search Engines.
6. Wikipedia search can now be accessed by entering keyword search term in the address bar, replacing "search term" with your query.

Firefox

Firefox has a search bar that can be configured for Wikipedia searches:

1. Click on the search bar icon on the left of the text box
2. Click "Manage Search Engines..."
3. Click "Get More Search Engines..."

This will take you to a webpage that lists available search engines. The Wikipedia Search engine will be there to add.

Alternatively, clicking on "Restore Defaults" may bring the Wikipedia search engine back to the list.

K-Meleon

K-Meleon has a search button that can be used to search Google. You can change it to search Wikipedia instead, by doing this:

1. Close K-Meleon.
2. Open up prefs.js with a text editor. The file should be in your K-Meleon\Profiles\PROFILE_NAME\RANDOM_STRING.slt\ directory.
3. Add this line, and save prefs.js.

user_pref("kmeleon.general.searchEngine", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=");

Open up K-Meleon and press the search button to search Wikipedia. To go back to Google or to use another search service, edit prefs.js and delete the added line

Make sure K-Meleon is closed before editing prefs.js.

Opera

Search bar

Opera (version 9.5+) has Wikipedia added as a default search option from the search bar (to the right of the address bar).

Keyword

Opera includes a Wikipedia keyword by default. To use it type w search term in the address bar, replacing "search term" with your query. Hold down the shift key while pressing the enter key to open the results in a new tab. Holding down the shift key also works with Wikipedia's sidebar search or Special:Search. It does not work with the search bar.

Safari + Saft

Works with Safari and the Saft plugin.

Results similar to those described for Mozilla can be attained with Safari and Saft. In the Preferences menu of Safari, choose the Saft section, then the Shortcuts tab. Click Add and enter "Wikipedia" (without the quotes) for the name, with "w" (again, no quotes) for the shortcut. The URL is similar to those listed above, with a change in the last character. Enter the text below in the URL field.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%@

Click OK, and close the preferences window. Now typing "w" followed by a space and your search term in the address bar of Safari will take you immediately to your search results. This can be easily altered to search Wikipedia in other languages.