--- a/mobile/android/geckoview/src/main/java/org/mozilla/gecko/util/StringUtils.java
+++ b/mobile/android/geckoview/src/main/java/org/mozilla/gecko/util/StringUtils.java
@@ -39,25 +39,25 @@ public class StringUtils {
      *
      * wasSearchQuery specifies whether text was a search query before the latest change
      * in text. In ambiguous cases where the new text can be either a search or a URL,
      * wasSearchQuery is returned
     */
     public static boolean isSearchQuery(String text, boolean wasSearchQuery) {
         // We remove leading and trailing white spaces when decoding URLs
         text = text.trim();
-        if (text.length() == 0)
+        if (text.length() == 0) {
             return wasSearchQuery;
-
+        }
         int colon = text.indexOf(':');
         int dot = text.indexOf('.');
         int space = text.indexOf(' ');
 
-        // If a space is found before any dot and colon, we assume this is a search query
-        if (space > -1 && (colon == -1 || space < colon) && (dot == -1 || space < dot)) {
+        // If a space is found in a trimmed string, we assume this is a search query(Bug 1278245)
+        if (space > -1) {
             return true;
         }
         // Otherwise, if a dot or a colon is found, we assume this is a URL
         if (dot > -1 || colon > -1) {
             return false;
         }
         // Otherwise, text is ambiguous, and we keep its status unchanged
         return wasSearchQuery;

--- a/mobile/android/tests/background/junit4/src/org/mozilla/gecko/util/TestStringUtils.java
+++ b/mobile/android/tests/background/junit4/src/org/mozilla/gecko/util/TestStringUtils.java
@@ -99,9 +99,47 @@ public class TestStringUtils {
         assertEquals("www.mozilla.org", StringUtils.join(".", Arrays.asList("www", "mozilla", "org")));
 
         assertEquals("hello", StringUtils.join("", Collections.singletonList("hello")));
         assertEquals("helloworld", StringUtils.join("", Arrays.asList("hello", "world")));
         assertEquals("hello world", StringUtils.join(" ", Arrays.asList("hello", "world")));
 
         assertEquals("m::o::z::i::l::l::a", StringUtils.join("::", Arrays.asList("m", "o", "z", "i", "l", "l", "a")));
     }
+
+    @Test
+    public void testIsSearchQuery(){
+        boolean any = true;
+        // test trim
+        assertFalse(StringUtils.isSearchQuery("",false));
+        assertTrue(StringUtils.isSearchQuery("",true));
+
+        // test space
+        assertTrue(StringUtils.isSearchQuery(" apple pen ",any));
+        assertTrue(StringUtils.isSearchQuery("pineapple pen",any));
+        assertTrue(StringUtils.isSearchQuery(": :",any));
+        assertTrue(StringUtils.isSearchQuery(". .",any));
+        assertTrue(StringUtils.isSearchQuery("gcm site:stackoverflow.com",any));
+        assertTrue(StringUtils.isSearchQuery("/mnt/etc/resolv.conf does not exist",true));
+
+        // test colon
+        assertFalse(StringUtils.isSearchQuery(":",any));
+        assertFalse(StringUtils.isSearchQuery("site:stackoverflow.com",any));
+        assertFalse(StringUtils.isSearchQuery("http:mozilla.com",any));
+        assertFalse(StringUtils.isSearchQuery("http://mozilla.com",any));
+        assertFalse(StringUtils.isSearchQuery("http:/mozilla.com",any));
+
+        // test dot
+        assertFalse(StringUtils.isSearchQuery(".",any));
+        assertFalse(StringUtils.isSearchQuery("cd..",any));
+        assertFalse(StringUtils.isSearchQuery("cd...",any));
+        assertFalse(StringUtils.isSearchQuery("mozilla.com",any));
+
+
+        // test ambiguous
+        String ambiguous = "~!@#$%^&*()_+`34567890-=qwertyuiop[]\\QWERTYUIOP{}|asdfghjkl;'ASDFGHJKL:\"ZXCVBNM<>?zxcvbnm,./";
+        ambiguous = ambiguous.replace(" ","").replace(".","").replace(":","");
+        assertTrue(StringUtils.isSearchQuery(ambiguous,true));
+        assertFalse(StringUtils.isSearchQuery(ambiguous,false));
+
+
+    }
 }