Yesterday I blogged about extending Firefox’s search bar width, which makes it much easier to view lengthy keyword strings. Today I’d like to pass along another search bar-related tip.

By default Firefox ships with six different search engines, including Google, Yahoo!, Amazon.com, Answers.com, the Creative Commons, and eBay. While Google is the default engine you can easily switch to the others by clicking on the “G” and choosing from the list that appears.

However, clicking implies using the mouse, which I try to avoid at all costs. Therefore to switch to another engine using solely the keyboard, first hit Ctrl+K to focus on the search bar, and then hit Ctrl+Up Arrow or Ctrl+Down Arrow to navigate amongst the others.

But what if you want to use another search engine altogether? You might be surprised to know you can add others by navigating to the Mozilla website and choosing among the more than 20 other available options. Among the available engines include The Internet Movie Database, Flickr, Lonely Planet, and ESPN.

If this list isn’t enough to satiate your need for search, you can create a custom engine using Rollyo!

Check back tomorrow for another Firefox tip.

Jason