What I really want to be able to do is to type some space-separated words in the URL text box and hit enter, and get a Google search. I know I can edit prefs.js to get that, but if the user has already selected his default search engine, he's probably not interested in getting results from a different one if he uses a different piece of the UI to get there. Per bug 58867, Internet Keywords is the path through which these searches should be handled.

You can do it just by pressing the up arrow before pressing enter.

Yes, there are lots of ways to get it to work (I hack prefs.js) - I'm just thinking of the average user and UI coherency.

For a handful of results I tried I get exactly the same results with Netscape Search and the search button as I do with internet keywords (hitting return). So if someone wants the default IK behavior, they can just select Netscape Search as their default search engine and lose nothing.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 53171 ***

Verifying duplicate. See bug 137026 for a better idea, anyway.