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Help:Searching from a web browser

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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 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 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

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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, Brave, and Chromium

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Chrome, Chromium (the open source variant of Chrome), and Brave (a browser based on Chromium) all have an address bar can be configured to search Wikipedia.

  1. Click the kebab menu to the right of the search bar.
  2. Select Preferences on Mac and Linux, or Settings on Windows or Chrome OS.
  3. Under Search engine, select Manage search engines.
    • If available, right-click in the address bar and select Edit search engines... instead.
  4. Under Site search, click Add and choose a name and keyword for Wikipedia search. (for example, the keyword can be "wiki")
    • You will use the keyword in the address bar to search Wikipedia directly by typing the keyword and then either tab or space depending on your settings.
  5. Enter https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=%s as the URL.
    • NB. Wikipedia may have automatically been added by the browser under Other search engines.
  6. Wikipedia search can now be accessed by entering keyword search term in the address bar, replacing "keyword" with your chosen selector keyword and "search term" with your query.

Edge

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The address bar in Microsoft Edge can be configured to search Wikipedia.

Navigate directly to the "Manage search engines" setting page by either:

  1. Typing edge://settings/searchEngines into the address bar

or navigating through the menu:

  1. Click the 'Settings and more' menu (three dots)
  2. Select Settings
  3. Under 'Privacy, Search and Services', scroll to the 'Services' heading and choose 'Address bar and search'
  4. Select 'Manage search engines'

Once in the "Manage search engines" setting page:

  1. Click the "Add" button.
  2. Add Wikipedia as a search engine
    1. In the "Search engines" field, name this entry e.g. Wikipedia.org
    2. In the "Shortcut" field, type the text that will trigger this search engine in the address bar e.g. wiki.
    3. In the "URL with %s in place of query" field enter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/%s as the URL.
    4. Click the Add Button. The address bar shortcut is now active.
    • NB. Wikipedia may be automatically suggested under Other Search Engines.

Wikipedia search can now be accessed by entering your shortcut in the address bar followed by space then your search word(s). Using the example above, typing wiki followed by space followed by main page and then the enter / return key will cause Edge to perform a search for Main Page on wikipedia.org and take you to that page.

Firefox

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Firefox has Wikipedia listed as a default search engine and can be set to such. It also has a keyword search function which allows the search engine to be changed when a certain keyword is typed to trigger such.

To set Wikipedia as the default search engine:

  1. Click the hamburger menu and go to the 'Options' menu.
  2. In the options menu, click on 'Search'.
  3. To set Wikipedia as the default search engine, click on the dropdown menu under "Default Search Engine" and select Wikipedia.

To trigger the keyword search:

  1. Type the '@' key into the search bar.
  2. Type the keyword for Wikipedia (by default it's '@wikipedia')
  3. Press tab once the box to the left of the search bar automatically fills with the Wikipedia logo and "Wikipedia."
  4. You should now have one search on Wikipedia through the search bar by means of they keyword.

Clicking on "Restore Defaults" may bring the Wikipedia search engine back to the list if it has been removed.

K-Meleon

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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

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

Keyword

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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

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Version 8+ (OS X Yosemite and later)

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Starting with Safari version 8, search Wikipedia by typing wiki <search term> into the search/address bar.

Older versions

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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.

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