If, like me, you’re optimising sites for a particular country and you’re not there, Firefox’s standard geo-locating search bar isn’t much help.

Sure: you can change .com (or whatever), to .co.uk in the URL everytime – but, come on, why?

Add extra search engine servers to the Firefox Search Bar

For this example I’m going to add a search server for google.co.uk. Assume I’m in Australia.

1. Right Click on Firefox in your Applications folder and choose Show Package Contents.

2. Navigate to Contents > MacOS > searchplugins

3. Duplicate the relevant file (ie: google.xml or yahoo.xml).

4. Open the file with a text editor like TextMate and change all instances of google.com.au (it will most likely be the server relevant to where you currently are) to google.co.uk (or whatever you require)

5. Rename the file something relevant to the server: google-uk.xml.

6. Done! You can now use the dropdown menu on the Firefox search bar to change your servers easily. Select Manage Search Engines to set your default.

I imagine you could use a similar process for PC – you’d just have to find the right files.