Multi Find: Search, Highlight, Explore by Vincent Greco

4.5 Stars out of 5

Review by Korwin

It copes with the task of searching for several letter combinations at the same time. There are two disadvantages: horizontal scrolling of the add-on window and the inability to close it by clicking on a web page. Different sets of search queries can only be saved in external text files, not in the extension itself. You can't add arbitrary domains to the exceptions. For example, docs.google.com — the extension doesn't work well on it. The extension is closed source and has no public issue tracker. store.steampowered.com/search — "Multi Find: Search and Highlight" is slowing down Firefox. To speed up your browser, stop that extension".

Developer response

posted 5 months ago

Thank you for your feedback!
Regarding the horizontal scrolling, the extension does not currently support a horizontal scrollbar because most search expressions fit within the window's width. However, I will consider ways to improve this (larger window or horizontal scrollbar).
[EDIT] Horizontal scrollbar added in version 1.74.
As for the search window not closing when clicking on the webpage, this feature was added recently due to user requests for a persistent window. You can revert to the previous behavior by disabling the "persistent search window" option in the display settings (click the cogwheel).

17 reviews

Rated 5 out of 5
by ARK141, 3 days ago
This is a life saver. What a great design too. Thanks.
Rated 3 out of 5
by Firefox user 13180573, 9 days ago
On some websites, like ebay, the multi-find window is under some of the website UI elements.

Also, there doesn't seem to be a way to launch it with a keyboard shortcut. You have to click the addon's button, which by default requires first clicking on Firefox's addon menu.

Otherwise, seems to work well.
Rated 5 out of 5
by Firefox user 17711486, a month ago
Rated 4 out of 5
by Sergiy, 3 months ago
There are some advantages, but overall, it doesn't yet measure up to the "Auto Highlight" extension, which has many more features. The main advantage: I didn't find any word limit here, while in "Auto Highlight" it is limited by Firefox Sync capabilities. Main disadvantages: it slows down with a large number of words; settings reset and don't save immediately, you have to change them several times before they are saved; no settings for different sites; no creation of different word lists; and so on. Overall, a decent extension, I hope it will develop to the level of "Auto Highlight" but with its own features.
Developer response
posted 3 months ago
Thank you for your detailed feedback!
I'm glad you appreciate the lack of word limits in Multi Find.
I'm continuously working on improving the extension, and your input is invaluable.
I'm aware of the slowdown issue with many words (and long webpages) and am exploring ways to optimize performance (v1.81 should already be faster than v1.80, and you can try to set diacritic sensitiveness *on* to speed up even more).
The reason why there are no different settings per site is that the extension is not aware of the navigation URL, for confidentiality issue. There is for now no plan to change that but the different word lists are on my radar instead. I hope to add this feature in a future update. Thanks for your support and patience!
Rated 3 out of 5
by netcat, 3 months ago
1. Unfortunately only works if highlighting is turned on, otherwise no word instances found.
Built-in FF find feature works fine.

2. Website highlighting not always overridden with chosen color.

Tested with a new clean FF ESR 128 profile at:
https://www.n-tv.de
Developer response
posted 3 months ago
Thank you for your review and remarks.
I will try to add the option to have no highlight at all in the settings (none/regular/soft glow).
Regarding your second point, unfortunately, I tested this same website, and I did not see any issue with the highlights. I would appreciate if you could, please, send a screenshot to info(at)vgreco(dot)fr
[EDIT 30/09/2024] version 1.83 can now have the highlight style set to none (go in the display options via the cogwheel) and still be able to count and select the searched words.
Rated 5 out of 5
by Bout's Morgan, 4 months ago
Works fine with Firefox 128.0.0 esr [64-bit] for Windows. Thanks Vincent !
Developer response
posted 4 months ago
Thank you for your review and feedback! I'm glad to hear works fine for you.
Rated 5 out of 5
by Zvezda39, 4 months ago
It's a very nice expansion.

I would like to ask, if possible, to add 1 mode to the 4 existing ones.

Is it possible to add a pure text search mode, as if one is searching for several paragraphs in the available sequence?

Your extension already does this, but it searches for lines separately from each other, not sequentially.

The standard Firefox search bar is not capable of searching for strings that are separated by blank line characters, but your extension can.

Adding such a mode would make life a lot easier for those looking for a Firefox search bar replacement.
Developer response
posted 4 months ago
Thank you very much for your review.

Regarding your request, I might introduce wildcard characters in the future, allowing you to separate different words. However, I'm afraid the search won't be able to span across different paragraphs. Stay tuned.
Rated 5 out of 5
by Adrièen, 4 months ago
Rated 3 out of 5
by Firefox user 18461747, 5 months ago
The addon is great ***** but it majorly slows down Firefox and tab switching tab time lag is noticeable.
Page load time is very high. *
Color coding option for every specific keyword can be introduced.
Profiles like A , B , C to switch between them immediately targetting on specific keywords.

The only major downside is slowdown of tabs which is why is have to disable and use the browser.

Easy way around could a feature like lazy load when the page has completely loaded the externsion can run after 2-3 seconds.
Developer response
posted 5 months ago
Thank you for your review and suggestions.
I'm sorry to hear about the slowdown issues you're experiencing. I will see what I can do to improve the speed (but is highly depends on the length of the word list and the webpage).
For the profile feature, the upcoming support for multiple keyword lists should address your needs. Stay tuned.
Regarding the color-coding for specific keywords, I'll see what can be done to implement this feature. [EDIT] Version 1.80 introduced color choices for individual words (and a faster search window).
Thank you again for your feedback!
Rated 5 out of 5
by piecevcake, 9 months ago
The best.
What happened to the bright colours? New download has ghastly dull colours! I tried click the colour selector, all levels changed to yellow and the bright colours disappeared from the selector replaced by dull ones.
Dull ones are not HIGHlights!!! They don't stand out in the pages. Changed my rating to 3 stars.

Update: the bright colours returned when uninstalled and reinstalled. Back to 5 stars :)
Developer response
posted 9 months ago
Thank you for your positive feedback and your patience. I apologize for any inconvenience caused by the colour issue, and I am pleased to hear that reinstalling the extension resolved the problem for you.

Version 1.60 introduced the dark theme, this is probably what you were seeing. The theme can be changed in the display settings (default is "system").
At this same place, you can choose the sub-range of colours to be used. It is not very intuitive: you have to click first on the first colour of the sub-range and then on the last colour of the sub-range (click on the first cell and then on the last one to retrieve the default settings).
Thank you for using Multi Find!
Rated 5 out of 5
by Firefox user 13270182, a year ago
YES
Yes yes YES. Finally!
I've been using this for a couple months now and it is a life changer! I had multi-color multi-word highlighting years ago with the old Google Toolbar and this is the best usable replacement for that feature. (Linking it to the search bar would be a nice feature!) Thanks, love your work. Can we donate to your effort?
Developer response
posted a year ago
Thank you so much for your enthusiastic feedback! I'm thrilled to hear that this extension has been a game-changer for you.
Regarding your suggestion, and I'll definitely look into it.
I appreciate your support and I'm happy to share that a premium version with additional features will be available next year, so there's no need to donate for now.
Stay tuned for the updates, and thanks again for your fantastic support!
Rated 5 out of 5
by KOLE$, a year ago
Rated 5 out of 5
by Piecevcake, a year ago
Bloody brilliant.
Developer response
posted a year ago
Thanks a lot. A new version is about to be released: I am convinced you will love the new features!
Rated 5 out of 5
by Firefox user 13455483, a year ago
Dark mode is nice so there isn't a bright white rectangle in my otherwise dark UI, but... can we have an option to leave the highlights "brighter" as they are in light mode? I like when they pop against a dark gray background. Current highlight colors are "too faded". Thx!
Developer response
posted 6 months ago
From version 1.70 you can edit all the highlight colors, including the dark mode ones. Feel free to make them brighter.
Rated 5 out of 5
by UserTX80, a year ago
Very nice addon does the job well. Dev please make 1 tiny change. When this addon is on I cant do this in address bar

CTRL+SHIFT+Left arrow key

This is used to highlight words at a time, but does not work with this addon turned on.
Developer response
posted a year ago
Thank you for the review, and I'm glad that you like the addon.
Regarding the keyboard shortcuts, it is difficult to find one that suits everybody. But the good news is that you can change it. Type "about:addons" in the address bar, then click on the cogwheel and choose "Manage Extension Shortcuts" in the menu. You can then change the key combination to anything you like.
Rated 5 out of 5
by P., a year ago
1. A must have Firefox Extention that gets better with every new Update.

2. Especially important for Academic work!

3. Workaround for Usage in PDF Files: open this Website and open your locally saved PDF then activate Multi Find.
https://mozilla.github.io/pdf.js/web/viewer.html

If this guy would work at Microsoft we wouldnt need Linux. Bill Gates should get his DNA to create an army of Developers!
Developer response
posted a year ago
Thank you for for using Multi Find and for your feedback: I am glad to hear that this extension has been helpful for your academic work.
To answer your concerns:
- Unfortunately, regarding the support of PDF, I am afraid this is too complex for this extension (basically I would have to re-write a PDF-viewer). A possible workaround is to convert the PDF into an HTML page.
- I understand the standard selection white highlight masking the extension colored highlight can be disturbing, but it is important to distinguish the current selected word while jumping from one occurrence to the next one, in case several of them are on the same line, for instance.
- And I appreciate your suggestion of the broader search with a random middle part: I will certainly consider implementing a joker/wildcard character in the future.
Thank you again for your support, and please keep checking for updates!

Edit: with the version 1.40 (Oct. 13), you can now activate the soft glow highlights: the color of the highlighs should still be visible even if you select the text.