If you use the stock searchbox that comes with Firefox, the query that gets sent to Google will include a client parameter set to firefox-a. The results that are returned are far less than if the same query was made from Google's main page.
The word "the" for example, Google's main page returns approximately 5.9 million results while the Firefox Searchbox feature will only return 2.5 million.
Further investigation of this phenomenon in a SearchEngineWatch thread reveals that the client parameter does not mean browser client -- client equates to search client or partner.
Using an AdSense search client (WebSearch) on a site that participates in that program will return less results also. The same holds true for sites that utilize the Google API search appliance. Other possible search clients include A9, of which a subset of the total Google Index is returned.
Barry Schwartz, in the same thread, opines that this might be a misuse of the client parameter.
So was this a gaffe on Mozilla's part to insert a client parameter in the search box? I don't think so because how would they know what to set that parameter to in the first place. They would had to have something they used before that included this parameter. The parameter setting alone, firefox-a, is unusual in itself. Why the "-a" on the end of it? Why not use plain old "firefox" as the client?
Interesting subject none-the-less.
VIA: Danny Sullivan
UPDATE: The folks over at mozillaZine Forums found this blog entry and were put a little back by it. But in short course, they came up with a workaround to prevent the client parameter from being injected into the URL on your searches.
Locate the file google.src which is in the searchplugins directory inside of the application directory. Open the file up and remove (or comment out) the following line:
<input name="sourceid" value="mozilla-search">
It was said that the google.src file was written (or provided) by someone at Google (according to the poster).
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