Chrome or Firefox address bar search is not working

Both Chrome and Firefox web browsers come with great address bars. Although the main purpose of the address bar is to display the current address and let the user change it, the modern browsers let you carry a lot of operations from the address bar itself. For example, you can search the internet, or you can search your bookmarks. Firefox loves to call its address bar as Awesome bar, and Chrome’s address bar is also not less awesome though. In this post, we have covered a few fixes around an issue where users were not able to search the internet using Address Bars in both Chrome and Firefox.

Chrome or Firefox address bar search not working

If you are one of those users who is facing this issue, read on to find out how to fix it. We’d be covering the following solutions; they are covered in detail further in the post.

1. Check if you have the latest version of the browser.
2. Firefox users – edit the keyword.enabled preference.
3. Chrome Users – clear Chrome data and reopen the browser.
4. Reset your browser.
5. Uninstall and re-install your browser.

1. Check if you have the latest version of the browser

Most of the bugs that have been discovered are fixed in recent builds of the software. So make sure you have an up-to-date version of the browser on which you are facing this issue. Updates on Google Chrome can be checked by clicking on three dots in the top right area. Now select Help and then About Google Chrome to open the About page. Now check if you have the latest version of Google Chrome installed. If not, you can update the browser from this page itself.

Follow the same steps on Firefox to update it to the latest available version. If this does not resolve your issue keep following the solutions mentioned in the post.

2. Firefox users … edit the keyword.enabled preference

There is a simple workaround available for Firefox users. Type in about:config in browser’s address bar and click on I accept the risk!

Now search for preference called keyword.enabled and make sure it is set to true. You can double click any setting to toggle its value.

3. Chrome Users … clear Chrome data & reopen the browser

If you are facing this issue on Google Chrome, then there is a workaround available. Follow these steps to fix search related issues with address bar on Chrome:

1. Close Google Chrome.
2. Open Windows Explorer.
3. Paste %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\ in the address bar and hit Enter.
4. Rename the Default folder to something else such as Default – Backup.
5. Open Chrome again and check if you can search from the address bar.

This would clear all your data from Chrome, and the browser would start fresh. Default folder would be automatically created again in the same directory. If you wish to migrate your bookmarks, copy the Bookmarks file from the old folder to the new folder.

4. Reset your browser

Resetting your browser can help resolve a lot of issues. On Google Chrome, go to Settings and scroll down to click on Advanced. Now scroll down to the very bottom and select Restore settings to their original defaults to reset Google Chrome.

Similarly on Firefox, type about:support in the address bar and click on Refresh Firefox… button to give Firefox browser a soft reset.

5. Uninstall & re-install your browser

If nothing seems to be working for you, simply uninstall the browser from your computer. Now re-install the browser by downloading the latest version from the official website. If nothing solves your issue, you can raise it in respective forums and expect a reply from developer teams.

Hope something helps.