I recently switched to firefox from Opera, and I've used both ctrl + E and ctrl + K, but both of them unfortunately default to searching Google, rather than allowing you to type an address directly or search google.

For example, on Opera, if I want to switch from my current page to youtube for example, I just press ctrl + E and type youtube and it auto-fills to youtube.com and I just press enter. On firefox (and chrome), I use ctrl + e and it forces me to search it so I have to move my hand back to my mouse and click the link.

Is there any way to switch the functionality to what Opera does?

In Chrome, I was able to set a custom search engine for the address bar in such a way that all I had to do was type "r" into the address bar, press tab, and type in the name of a subreddit (example "firefox") and I'd be redirected to https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox.

I tried setting that up using a bookmark in Firefox, which works for awhile until I manually enter one subreddit enough times that the suggestion algorithm prefers that over the bookmark until I either wipe my history or deal with arrow-pressing down.

Is there any more permanent way of achieving the behavior I want, either natively or using a plugin?

If I use Command+K or Command+Option+F then Firefox will focus on the address bar, but my default search engine will be selected. I just want a keyboard shortcut to perform the same result as when I click on the address bar: I perform a search that returns bookmarks, history, etc.

I have checked https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts-perform-firefox-tasks-quickly and I can't see a solution.