WoW Firefox search plugins
by Ryan Carter 
Jun 27th 2007 at 11:00AM
How many times a day do we all search Thottbot, Allakhazam, WoWWiki, Wowhead and others? It gets old really fast to type in the address or go dig it out of bookmarks every time right? About 50 of you are right now thinking, "geez ya noob, like thottbot is my homepage!" Before you get all huffy and start chargin' your fireball, realize that there is a better way to look-up those [ACME Pauldrons of the Whale]. Think of them as WoW UI add-ons for Firefox. What? That's right, IRL WoW add-ons for your Firefox browser. Check out these search plug-ins that you may get some use out of if you look up things like a banshee. By the way, I've heard that Lady Sylvanas can Google stuff like nobody's business, but that is unconfirmed as of this writing.
Firefox search plug-ins for WoW
-WoW Armory (both US and EU versions)
-Allakhazam Quests
-Allakhazam Items
-Allakhazam Mobs
-Curse gaming add-ons
-WoW Official forums
-WoWWiki
-Wowhead
-Wowdirectory
The links to all of these search engines are at Mozilla's "mycroft" website, which lets users build their own search plug-ins for their favorite sites. For any of the search plug-ins, simply click the name of the site you wish to install, and Firefox does the rest.
Our very own search plug-in
Also, I am proud to introduce the official WoW Insider Firefox search plugin that you can now download for your WoW Insider perusing pleasure (without having to type the address or leave your browser). Please use this plug-in responsibly, no members of the Burning Legion are allowed to use this search. Enjoy
Filed under: Tips, Odds and ends, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dylan Jun 27th 2007 11:12AM
For Mac users, there is also a handy widget called WOWdget.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/games/wowdget.html
It lets you search Thottbot, Wowhead, and Allakhazam really easily.
Strongmark on Arthas Jun 27th 2007 11:13AM
I dunno, I use IE7 and I have a quick search in the top right hand corner where I can switch from Google, Thottbot and Wowhead at the click of a button with no problems and no hassle by going to these sites in the first place. but I will check out these plugins to see whats up.
Michael Jun 27th 2007 11:23AM
WoW Directory is World of Web NOT World of Warcraft
Baluki Jun 27th 2007 11:34AM
Yea, IE7 doesn't need plugins to be able to search a site. You click the down-arrow next to your search button and select "Find More Providers", and then just follow the simple directions in the yellow box. Any site with a search feature can be added.
Pretty nice feature. I've got mine set up to search Thottbot and WoWhead, WoWwiki, and a bunch of other sites I like (IMDb, isoHunt, Wikipedia, Wookieepedia...)
descender Jun 27th 2007 11:39AM
In Opera you can make your own "Quick Search" from almost any search box.
1) Simple rightclick a search box and select "Create Search"
2) Then, pick a short keyword for the search (ie 'tb' for thottbot)
3) Done!
Now you can type "tb arcanite" in the address bar to perform a search.
Cedric Jun 27th 2007 11:41AM
Easy Armory with FireFox: create a bookmark for the url http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#character-sheet.xml?r=Gnomeregan&n=%s
(replace Gnomeregan with your realm), then set its keyword to "a".
Now, all you need to do to look up character "foo" is to type "a foo" in the address bar.
Chris M Jun 27th 2007 11:43AM
@5 - You realize that's almost the identical way to do it in Firefox.
Regardless, I have the same setup. I just type in 'tb Murloc' and I get the listings for all murlocs; or 'tb Briarthorn' and get the briarthorn page.
howellgerald Jun 27th 2007 11:44AM
IGoogle let's you make customized searches. I found one named World of Warcraft Search that will perform a google search on allakhazam, wowhead, thottbot, and wowwiki.
Adese Jun 27th 2007 11:49AM
@6 - ty for the directions for setting that up. Just this morning I was thinking that I should search for a link indicating how to do that for the Armory, and there it was. :)
loutr Jul 2nd 2007 3:39AM
@8 : on iGoogle, you can create a new tab, type in "WoW" as the tab name, and click "I'm feeling lucky". 1 second later you've got yourself a WoW homepage, with the search widget, plus news and addons feeds. Pretty neat :)
Arispere Jun 27th 2007 12:34PM
You failed to say why going though the process of installing plugins is easier than clicking on a wowhead bookmark.
Matthew Jun 27th 2007 2:12PM
@10: If you click on the wowhead bookmark, then click a search, you have to load two pages, and likely move your mouse around the page. Adding a quicksearch to your browser window lets you type in the search without loading wowhead at all, saving you a pageload.
If you keep your browser on wowhead all the time, then yeah, no big deal, but I go through a lot of different sites while I play, so having a thott or wowhead search built into my browser definitely saves time.
foyle Jun 27th 2007 2:33PM
@7 and in support of @5: Opera has had that feature as well as customizable search dropdown for quite some time before Firefox implemented it. :)
Regardless, I also have it setup for both WoWhead (wh) and Armory (a). I much prefer that method to plugins in any browser, especially since I usually have my plugins turned off most of the time for increased security.
Bootsanator Jun 27th 2007 2:54PM
I love firefox, but my homepage is a google.com personalized page. with widgets, it's fantastic. most of mine are wow-related (i only have 6). Besides clock/calendar and weather, I have:
1. http://www.google.com/ig/directory?hl=en&url=http://rsnook.googlepages.com/wowdb.xml
Wow database search. I have wowhead on my bookmarks toolbar, but the others are only for cases when wowhead doesn't have what i need (which is rare).
2. WoW server status. tells you realm status.
3. WoW bluetracker. I don't use it much, but sometimes it's fun seeing what blue is commenting on in the forums.
4. WoW Insider.
Basically, the only thing i do during the day at work. Read articles. This updates more or less immediately when there's a new post, and you can set the # of posts you want to show at a time (I like 5).
Now, all you customizing fans...go make me some more wow widgets for my google page! 8-D
Krishan Jun 27th 2007 3:17PM
So how do I set this up on firefox on a mac? Please enlighten :P *the quick search i mean for tb Murloc :D
Birthday today woo :P
Gweedo Jun 27th 2007 10:43PM
I just programmed the search button on my keyboard to load Wowhead instead of Google. :) Everytime I press the button it opens a new Wowhead window. It's awesome. :)
jmicaux Jul 3rd 2007 6:20AM
You can also use the new Widget "Wow Armory" :
http://netvibes.micaux.com/wowarmory/
available on Netvibes, iGoogle and MacOSX (with UWA Dashboard widget)
@++