Linux @lemmy.ml squid @feddit.uk 1 yr. ago

Since when did Firefox make it so difficult to set custom search engine?

So been moving around a lot with browsers, waterfox, librewolf and very recently degoogle chromium, figured id look at Firefox and holy theres less than half the option in setting then there were afew years back but I gotta say the biggest sin is that adding custom search engine is obfuscated, and the chooses of engines are google, bing, duckduckgo and fucking Amazon! Wtf is that about? But anyway all these search engines are pretty awful including duckduckgo but beyond that the browser scene is a joke, mullvad are about the only company I feel compatible with using now

Edit: instead of saying how easy it is to add custom search engines, I'd like to know why the "add search engine" feature in settings is gone?

61 comments

What? Settings: search for search. Change default. Click find more search engines. It offers hundreds of them.

This was not hard, nor obfuscated.
- I've reinstalled Firefox to test this and followed your direction. I can't see anymore search engines than previously stated
  
  Right there where it says Find More Search Engines:.
  
  Or the other way, go to on any site, click the search bar and the option to add it as a search appears at the bottom of the search bar: https://i.imgur.com/c3bFc7g.png
  
  I went to the Quant website, and then it offered for me to add it as a search, hence the + symbol. Or click the settings button to "Find more search engines".
  
  I will admit that having to browse through Firefox extensions is not as easy, but the ability to add an engine at any time, without even using settings, simply by visiting the web page is pretty simple.
  
  Edit: I didnt find it hard at all, using the keyword search in the settings menu. But they also have a guide: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-or-remove-search-engine-firefox#w_add-search-engines
What are you talking about?

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-or-remove-search-engine-firefox#w_add-a-search-engine-from-the-address-bar

That took me like two second to find. You can also use addons, like this one for Qwant:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/qwantcom-for-firefox/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search

Which I like. But none of this is hard or "obfuscated", and it's literally identical to changing or adding a new search engine on Waterfox.

I have a lot of issues with Mozilla, not least of which is their reliance on Google for income. It's like hiring a dingo as a babysitter. But c'mon, man.
- Okay so I remember when in setting I could just add search engines, why remove that feature? Why not have the add from search bar as well as in settings?
  
  That doesn't make sense? How would you have the "add from search bar" feature in the settings screen?
  
  It's a context specific method of adding a search engine - you add it when you're at the site. Meanwhile the setting screen is global for the browser.
Permanently Deleted
- Agreed, I think it's because a lot of people here have the "firefox vs chromium" mentality, rather than the correct "firefox vs librewolf" mentality.
  
  people are probably seeing this as an attack on firefox and so someone switching to chromium
I am confused by this post, there are 4 ways to add search engines to Firefox:

From the settings page via "add search engine" button, to pick on from the Firefox add-ons site. This is the "main" route for most users as it ensures you're adding links from a trusted source (so you won't add a fake version of a popular search engine by accident that scrapes your data).

Via the address bar. Any website that supports OpenSearch can be added by right clicking the address bar and selecting "add search engine name".

Via the Mycroft project website, where almost any search engine in the directory can be added to Firefox.

Via bookmarks and keywords. This is slightly more involved but almost any engine can be added this way.

Android Firefox offers slightly different routes but again any search engine can be added. It is a bit more involved though.

Firefox includes certain search engines by default as it gets revenue from the search engine providers for doing so, and Mozilla is transparent about this. Although Mozilla is independent, the Google search engine deal remains one of its biggest sources of income. That's how it survives.

The default add-ons site meanwhile is a compromise between security and convenience for the majority of users, but people are not locked in to it and other search providers are not locked out of it.

The Mullvad browser is modified Firefox btw, as is the Tor Browser it is itself based off. I don't know how much either contribute to the Mozilla foundation. Tor is an open source project but Mullvad is a commercial enterprise.
- One thing that is difficult to do though is adding a custom search engine query that is not already offered in the OpenSearch XML format. For example, how would you go about making https://lemmy.world/search?type=All&listingType=All&page=1&sort=TopAll&q=%s the default search engine pattern?
  
  When I tried to do something similar I ended up creating and serving the XML from my own web server. Would love to know if there is an easier way. It used to be trivial to do via preferences.
  
  Edit, sorry, Lemmy insists on turning ampersands into & for some reason, here it is the example URL pattern as a link
  
  Also, this support post has some discussion on the issue.
- And why the hell would I use an add-on for a web address? My point is that the search engine feature is gone from settings
Not sure why you get downvoted so heavily, I have also found that adding a custom search engine is unnecessary hard in Firefox these days.

There is a way to get the “add” button back in the settings described here: https://superuser.com/a/1756774
- Never kick an underdog even if the underdog is directly funded by google, I should imagine google had a large part to play in these changes. But anyway thanks for the link
  
  I've also come off and confrontational with my stance, its hard not to be when a large portion of replys have been dancing around the stated issue of senseless removal of a key setting
  
  the real underdog is librewolf
Generally speaking, I’ve noticed that, for inexperienced users and beginners, the settings pages/windows/tabs for many web browsers aren’t very… friendly. They’re designed mostly for advanced users and users who are already accustomed to their design/layout.

The one exception to this would be Safari, which is designed to be far more accessible, but most advanced users dislike using it for this reason (and a few other novel UX decisions).
- The obfuscation of default search engine is predatory is more of what I'm getting at
  
  Also no, setting page is not for advanced users, about:config is
  
  I mean Firefox is mostly funded by a deal with Google to have them as the default engine. I don't like it but I understand why it is the way it is.
  
  Yeah, I agree with you re: obfuscation of changing the default search engine. That’s crappy.
  
  I was speaking in a general sense of FF’s and most popular browsers' settings pages’/panels’ UX design, not trying to impugn your own ability to find the setting. Apologies if it came off that way.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-or-remove-search-engine-firefox

But I also agree that they really need better defaults in that list, while adding more isn't complex, most people are going to either use the default, or just pick from the dropdown of defaults which are bad.
@squid True...Harder now to add a custom search engine unless you visit it and then click the url on top to get a dropdown to add it...but manually adding it is hard.

Speaking of search engines I highly recommend searx.neocities.org/ - it randomly uses the best Searx instances. No ads, no tracking...
- Here's another one worth a try. https://4get.ca
  
  @sic_semper_tyrannis Oh nice! I'll have a deeper look. Thx
- I've heard of searx never used it though
  
  @squid I use it daily. We ran an instance too. It is simply great. As good as Google, DDG, and the like are, since it is using them.
- How about startpage?
  
  @TheDarkBanana87 As far as I know they have been bought by an ad-company en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startpag… - but SearX supports Startpage too. Just without the BS. I cannot trust any company honestly. They are incentivized to kinda lie and exaggerate. And search engines ran by companies....are terrible. If their business model is to sell you ads, they will track you one way or another, and if not today, they will do it next year.
User error
I turned the behavior of "try to resolve and if it doesn't work, feed it to a search engine" off, because I don't want my slightly-mistyped URLs to go to a search engine, and I want to have easy access to multiple search engines.

Instead, I just add a keyworded bookmark for each search engine that I want to be able to use. Right-click on search field, choose "Add a keyword for this search...". Firefox lets you set a keyword for the bookmark.

It'll replace "%s" in the bookmarked URL with whatever your search query was. If your keyword is "gn" and you have it set up to search Google News, then "gn brushfires australia" will search for brushfires in Australia.
On Desktop you need "add custom search engine" an addon that creates custom engines for you. Otherwise you can only add OpenSearch ones, the ones that show up when right clicking the URL bar of a website.
Go to the site, right click on the url bar and at the bottom there's the option.

Any site that implements open search can be added.
- And even if it doesn't, you can often get around that by searching for a site on The Mycroft Project to see if there's a plugin for it.
Out of curiosity, why did you say that duckduckgo was particularly awful?
- Search results are generally dogshit with ddg and anyone who has tried to use it for a bit would know
  
  No. The results are usually pretty good. And the layout of results is better and more concise.
  
  I like it much better than Google. If I absolutely have to I can use ! and pick a different engine or even narrow down a site.
  
  The main thing that I can't get away from Google for is the extensive database of local results. When I need to find a business nearby, no other search engine is as accurate. This is especially true because Google has such an extensive network of people providing free information and updates about every location on earth.
- Its an american company, so privacy be damned
  
  You will eventually dream to live here after the UK new bill.

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