10 ms·

Mozilla Intends to Deprecate OpenSearch

116 points by zdunn 7y ago

zdunn 7y ago
Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but it seems like Mozilla plans to remove custom search engines from Firefox, except through WebExtensions. So you won't be able to go to a site and easily install a search engine for it. The site author has to build a web extension and submit it to the firefox addon site.
- ginko 7y ago
  I have tons of search keywords set up. This is really annoying.
  - lorenzhs 7y ago
    The article is about search engine addons (which approximately nobody is using), I don't see how this would relate to search keywords? I don't think those are going away any time soon.
- nicoburns 7y ago
  Yeah, this is crazy. Chrome's implementation of this (which allows you to type the beginning of a website's domain and then plus tab to use that site's search functionality) is already one of the things I miss most when I use Firefox. They should be improving this, not removing it.
  - currysausage 7y ago
    I switched from Chrome to Firefox literally this week, and I am missing this so badly. Can't understand why they wouldn't copy this behavior in all these years. I hope they put it on their agenda now. I was preparing to create my top 25 OpenSearch plugins manually (less popular plugins at addons.mozilla.org often lack autocomplete and have other quality issues). Glad I read this before wasting 2 hours of my life. Now I'm just switching back to Chrome. Does Mozilla actually expect site owners to create search extensions for ~5% Firefox users (of which in turn ~5% will actively install such an extension)? Firefox performance has come a long way, but Chrome is still way more polished. Apparently, Chrome is at the same time more poweruser-friendly, which really irritates me.
    - lorenzhs 7y ago
      No need, firefox supports custom search engines, but it a) doesn't store them automatically, you have to manually add them and b) doesn't have as nice a UI for them as chrome does. But it works. Why it isn't implemented better is beyond me, too. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21292283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21292283 for instructions.
      - currysausage 7y ago
        No autocomplete this way, though
      - majkinetor 7y ago
        Or just use plugin like Vimium that makes this feature cross browser.
    - wging 7y ago
      Create a bookmark with %S for the search query (%s if you need escaping) and a keyword that matches what you want to type as a prefix.
maverick74 7y ago
Yeap, Firefox is shooting themselves in the foot on this one, if you ask me!
- Kaiyou 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure it's intentional at this point. You don't go shooting yourself in the foot, reload and do it again consistently for years without intent.
  - maverick74 7y ago
    hum... You know, looking more carefully over the question i came to the conclusion that you're probably right!!! They're probably wishing a hammer this xmas to hammer themselves over and over and over... just for the fun of it...
abhinavsharma 7y ago
This title is a little misleading. The original title of the post is "Search Engine add-ons to be removed from addons.mozilla.org", which implies that a special class of addons will be removed from the online store and merged with regular extensions. Firefox has never supported OpenSearch in the same way Chrome has, where you can type in "yout" + tab and search YouTube immediately. Opensearch engines could be added to firefox from this page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search-tools/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search-tools/ .This in practice was just an extension but a different schema. They probably just want to consolidate and maintain only one schema for all extensions. Now, it is still truly surprising to me that it's easier to use third-party search in Chrome than in Firefox, given all of Mozilla's talk about the Google monopoly. In Chrome, adding a search engine is as simple as going to chrome://settings/searchEngines and adding a string like "bing.com?q=%s" while in Firefox the only way I can find out so far is packaging an extension and loading it up.
- sorenjan 7y ago
  You used to be able to make an XML file with the search query and base64 encoded icon and put it in the search engines folder in your profile. It wasn't the easiest way for non technical users, but once you knew how it wasn't bad. It made it easy to backup, together with bookmarks.html.
  - tveita 7y ago
    As of at least Firefox 69.0.3, you can right click most query fields and choose "Add a keyword for this search". It works about the same in e.g. Opera and Vivaldi. It's unclear if the "intent to deprecate OpenSearch" also means removing this functionality.
    - sorenjan 7y ago
      But those are keywords in the URL ("Awesome") bar though, right? I prefer to use the search bar for search and URL bar for URLs. As far as I remember that functionality doesn't use OpenSearch but instead save the search query string as a bookmark.
sorenjan 7y ago
Does this mean that they're also removing the search field? Do I have to create an extension and sign it for every site I want to search on that doesn't have an extension on their own?
- kevin_b_er 7y ago
  Looks like it. You must now have approval from AMO to have a entry in the search field.
- sp332 7y ago
  They're not getting rid of the search field. It links directly to code examples for how to add search engines using the new API!
mfer 7y ago
I hope this is as easy as someone writing an extension that restores the functionality. Maybe this can spur some innovation for Firefox users via extensions.
- sorenjan 7y ago
  Extensions can add address bar suggestions, but not a new search bar. It's unclear if Mozilla intends to remove that as well, I haven't seen any webextensions that add a search provider to it. There are several extensions that use userscripts, like Greasemonkey and Tampermoney, so loading the search manifest files shouldn't be a problem. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/user_interface https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web...
warbiscuit 7y ago
That seems really ass-backward, and not just because I use the search feature a lot. If I'm reading that right, they're deprecating support for discoverable browser-independant markup for searches; and replacing it with the requirement that each site actively develop (and maintain!) a software plugin for every browser their users might want to use. The whole point of a "user agent" was to go out and do things for me on the web; and the idealistic goal was that each person could choose an agent suited for them, which then had tools to programmatically discover and interact with the web in a common manner (reducing engineering load on the webdevs). And I don't want to try and use a separate search tool (with new flashing graphics and ads!!!!) for every site I go to... I want a single search tool, like FF offers right now. (Aside: not to mention chrome's "auto-discovery of opensearch when you tab after typing a domain" is actually MORE useful than FF's manual mode!). Taking a step back and removing support for a declarative api seems to me like the really wrong direction for an open web. Instead of sites supporting a single declarative browser-independent markup; they now have to deal with a long tail of (2-3 + who knows how many) browsers; and users with a niche browser have to spend effort convincing every site to support their browser. Why not try to improve the opensearch markup instead?
- warbiscuit 7y ago
  Followup - I'd actually been using chrome a bit more heavily; and was wanting to use FF more, just to support open standards. One of the main things I was missing was being able to type in google docs domain, tab, and type a document. I was planning to research how to make something similar work in FF, and now I know how, and that they're removing it :(
  - myfonj 7y ago
    There is ancient feature of regular bookmarks to serve as "search keywords" [1]: just give it a some keyword and use `%s` in place of URL you want to substitute with value encoded as URI fragment (IIRC, or `%S` to be used more verbatim). In Firefox it is directly in "New bookmark" form; in Chrome it is dug somewhere in "Search engines" corner of settings. For example setting keyword `t` for uri `data:text/plain,%S` and entering `t foo` into location bar will navigate you to `data:text/plain,foo`, i.e. "make document". If Google Docs have GET endpoint for creating documents, it should work. For searching you can apparenly use `https://docs.google.com/document/?q=%s` https://docs.google.com/document/?q=%s`. [1] https://www-archive.mozilla.org/docs/end-user/keywords https://www-archive.mozilla.org/docs/end-user/keywords
mindcrime 7y ago
Yay, another victory for Open Standards and the Open We... uh, oh wait. Never mind. I'm just going to go crawl under a rock somewhere and cry now.
- aswan 7y ago
  What are you crying about? Both Firefox and Chrome support a common format for defining search engines from add-ons: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/manifest.json/chrome_settings_overrides https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web... https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/settings_override https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/settings_override The fact that it doesn't have "open" in its name doesn't actually make it any less open or interoperable. This is about standardizing on having a single and modern way to define search engines, nothing more and nothing less.
  - Macha 7y ago
    There are two separate gatekeepers in AMO and the CWS. On the other hand, OpenSearch is used for the "Add search for this field" option which just needs some metadata defined on the web page. If they were just removing OpenSearch in xpi on AMO, that'd be fine, but the post says they intend to remove OpenSearch as a whole.
  - dictum 7y ago
    > Both Firefox and Chrome support a common format for defining search engines from add-ons ...which have nothing to do with the Open Web, mentioned in the parent reply. Both require participating in, and consequently adhering to the terms of, stores operated by third parties.
    - aswan 7y ago
      > ..which have nothing to do with the Open Web, Which, in turn, has nothing to do with the origin article. Read it again, it is only about how search engines are defined inside add-ons.
AdmiralAsshat 7y ago
Well, that blows. I know a good number of the search engines I use have shortcuts in DuckDuckGo, but I felt pretty clever when I discovered I could configure Firefox to search Wikipedia/Amazon/IMDB directly rather than going through DDG intermediary. It also avoided clogging my address bar suggestions with: https://duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSpecial%3ASearch%3Fsearch%3Dtrueos%26go%3DGo https://duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipe... etc.
tannhaeuser 7y ago
As we're approaching the end of the decade, for posteriority we should put up a site with 2000's and 1990's web features that we took for granted (such as RSS, also used by OpenSearch result listings) but don't have anymore in 2010's web of shit.
- kgwxd 7y ago
  RSS is not dead, it's just not advertised much anymore. It's still the only way I "subscribe" to anything.
  - avian 7y ago
    Maybe not completely dead yet, but each time any webpage gets a redesign these days, they usually kill RSS feeds. It's more or less a niche "old web" tech now.
spinningslate 7y ago
I'm.. at a loss. Please, if any Mozillers are on here, can you explain? I want Mozilla to be successful as a proponent of the open web. I've said before I'd gladly pay for it. With real, hard, proper money. My biggest concern is the unhealthy dependence on Google. I want a successful Mozilla precisely because I value the free web, not the contorted surveillance monster that Google, Facebook et al seem intent on. So in the absence of convincing rationale, I assume announcements like this to be nefarious intervention at Google's behest. Return on that $300M "contribution". Please, Mozilla. Don't give in to the dark side. There is a palpable increase in privacy awareness - you can be at the nexus of growing it, and grow yourself accordingly. Or you can side with the Emperor. Who will crush you once you've served your purpose. OK, maybe that's dubiously allegorical. Here's the brutal commercial interpretation. The _only_ way for you to reverse your declining market share is to have a differentiator. People need a reason to use Firefox. You can choose that path. Google isn't "supporting" you - it's adopted the "embrace, extend, extinguish" mantra so beloved of 90s/00s era Microsoft. To be clear: you're well into stage 3. Seems to me you have two choices. Find a differentiator and adopt a growth business plan for independence. Or remain at best Google's sop against anti-competitive accusations, and be fully extinguished when you're not needed any more.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- apostacy 7y ago
  I have said this over and over again. Look back at the initial success when they were up against Internet Explorer 6. They offered users what Microsoft wouldn't. They didn't hamstring themselves with IE6 compatibility, and instead broke the rules of what a browser was supposed to be by only considering what was best for the user, and spurning harmful standards and technologies. Where Microsoft hid extensions away in the registry, and their extensions had degenerated to the point where most of them were malicious, Firefox did the revolutionary thing of offering direct access to them by users. There's a lot wrong with Chrome, like their draconian and invasive updater that sometimes damages people's computers and can not be easily turned off.[1] Or how Chrome's extensions, while safer, are also crippled and prone to abuse by their forced updates. Mozilla could easily leverage Google's weaknesses against them, as they did with Microsoft. Mozilla is not a for-profit platform, they can afford to make the things Google can not. They can have a powerful community driven extension architecture that empowers users to do things Google never would. So of course instead of improving and securing their old extension architecture, or replacing it with something just as powerful, they copied Chrome again. It may be hard to believe, but including a built in popup blocker was revolutionary. It was called "irresponsible" by advertisers, and forced everyone else to change. Could you ever imagine Mozilla undermining the big players like that today? Even though bold moves like that are what got them their success in the first place. It wasn't branding or PR or any of that crap! I think the only good thing they've done is containers. And containers are such a good thing for users that I am convinced that many in Mozilla were opposed to it and fought against it, and that it will be deprecated with a flimsy UX metrics justification. And toadies on HN will try to justify it because "why are you thinking about this so much? This is fine, stop complaining, jeez." One of the smartest things Mozilla used to do was not try to implement bad technologies. They didn't try to re-create the quirks of the Trident engine; they didn't let Micosoft dictate the standards, so Javascript could not eject the CD tray, and you could not change the color of the scroll bars! They didn't waste effort trying to copy Microsoft's Windows-first proprietary ActiveX model. A much better compromise was the community created IETab extension, which just ran an instance of Internet Explorer in one of the tabs for when you needed it.[3] Could you imagine the Mozilla of today saying that if you wanted to watch DRM'd Netflix, you should just use Chrome? Is Firefox even technically capable of having something like Chrome tab anymore? Think of the resources that would be freed up if they stopped trying to have feature parity with Microsoft/Apple/Google. They just need to have the courage to say "that technology is evil, we won't support it. Maybe someone will make an extension to support it". Instead, essential technologies like RSS are deprecated and left to the community to implement, while DRM and proprietary and problematic standards are given first class support. Mozilla has made all of the wrong moves in the last 10 years. Their priorities are completely misguided. And I am certain that if they just centered the user over the big platforms, they would experience more popularity than a billion dollars in marketing and PR. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21064663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21064663 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21233041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21233041 [3]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/682975 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/682975
lultimouomo 7y ago
Besides the merit of the choice of deprecating OpenSearch, what kind of timeline is that? 40 days from deprecation to removal from AMO?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Mathnerd314 7y ago
So instead of hhttps://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/OpenSearch#OpenSearch_description_file https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/OpenSearch#Open... we have https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/manifest.json/chrome_settings_overrides https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web.... Simple enough and it seems OpenSearch will still work embedded on websites for a while. But it's unclear how they plan to get website owners to migrate.
- zdunn 7y ago
  > But it's unclear how they plan to get website owners to migrate. And it's unclear why they should have to. OpenSearch is a standard that all modern browsers currently support. Why should a site author have to support OpenSearch for every browser and build/maintain a WebExtension just for Firefox?
kevin_b_er 7y ago
Looks like Mozilla may also be planning to kill the search bar. With this change, how can anything be added to the search bar itself? As usual, Mozilla just follows Google lead rather than innovating browser features anymore. How does mandated signed addons get you "offers users more controls for opting into changes"? They offer me less controls, as someone else (AMO) controls what I may opt into.
- sp332 7y ago
  Search engines will be added by regular extensions. It says this in the second paragraph and links to code examples for how to do it.
  - hu3 7y ago
    How is it desirable or even acceptable to deteriorate user and developer experience like this? Firefox will require users to install an extension in order to add search engines instead of just visiting websites. And developers will have to create extensions that barely anyone knows about let alone bother to install. Much worse than today's solution of including a little code in your website and have users autodiscover your search engine: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <OpenSearchDescription xmlns="a9...spec"> <ShortName>Website Title</ShortName> <Description>Search my website</Description> <Url type="application/rss+xml" template="mysite.com/search?q={searchTerms}"/> </OpenSearchDescription>
    - sp332 7y ago
      Yeah, probably. I'm just answering the first two sentences of the post I was replying to.
maverick74 7y ago
Link to Discussion: https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/deprecation-of-opensearch-xml-add-ons-current-users/ https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/deprecation-of-opensearch-xm...
maverick74 7y ago
Link to the discussion: https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/deprecation-of-opensearch-xml-add-ons-current-users/46868 https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/deprecation-of-opensearch-xm...
maverick74 7y ago
https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/deprecation-of-opensearch-xml-add-ons-current-users/46868 https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/deprecation-of-opensearch-xm...
Endy 7y ago
Well, this is a great reason for Firefox users to remove the Google search engine from their browser and use DuckDuckGo. Better results and the bang syntax!
m31415 7y ago
This is nuts. Mozilla should at least allow the user to set a custom search engine using an about:config option, like the old keyword.URL [1] option, which was removed after Firefox 23. I use DuckDuckGo with several customizations as POST parameters and it would be very cumbersome if I have to write an extension to use DDG the way I want it. [1] http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keyword.url http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keyword.url
carapace 7y ago
Mozilla is basically the fig leaf covering Google's hegemony, they get all their money from Google, they use Google to track Firefox users ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14753546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14753546 ).
nine_k 7y ago
Dear mods, the current title is incorrect and misleading. Please restore the title as the linked page has it: "Search Engine add-ons to be removed from addons.mozilla.org".
- rhencke 7y ago
  In what way is it incorrect or misleading? The first paragraph of the article states "Mozilla intends to deprecate OpenSearch and eventually remove it from Firefox."
citrusx 7y ago
I wonder if it's possible to write one extension using WebExtensions, which does a better job supporting OpenSearch? I know that WebExtensions is limited, but all one would need to do is read the OpenSearch data, store it somewhere for later recall, and open up some path in the ui to search on a site that we stored the info for. And, of course, launch a tab with the results in it. Sounds like a nice little side project.

116 points by zdunn 7y ago

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but it seems like Mozilla plans to remove custom search engines from Firefox, except through WebExtensions. So you won't be able to go to a site and easily install a search engine for it. The site author has to build a web extension and submit it to the firefox addon site.

ginko 7y ago
I have tons of search keywords set up. This is really annoying.
- lorenzhs 7y ago
  The article is about search engine addons (which approximately nobody is using), I don't see how this would relate to search keywords? I don't think those are going away any time soon.
nicoburns 7y ago
Yeah, this is crazy. Chrome's implementation of this (which allows you to type the beginning of a website's domain and then plus tab to use that site's search functionality) is already one of the things I miss most when I use Firefox. They should be improving this, not removing it.
- currysausage 7y ago
  I switched from Chrome to Firefox literally this week, and I am missing this so badly. Can't understand why they wouldn't copy this behavior in all these years. I hope they put it on their agenda now. I was preparing to create my top 25 OpenSearch plugins manually (less popular plugins at addons.mozilla.org often lack autocomplete and have other quality issues). Glad I read this before wasting 2 hours of my life. Now I'm just switching back to Chrome. Does Mozilla actually expect site owners to create search extensions for ~5% Firefox users (of which in turn ~5% will actively install such an extension)? Firefox performance has come a long way, but Chrome is still way more polished. Apparently, Chrome is at the same time more poweruser-friendly, which really irritates me.
  - lorenzhs 7y ago
    No need, firefox supports custom search engines, but it a) doesn't store them automatically, you have to manually add them and b) doesn't have as nice a UI for them as chrome does. But it works. Why it isn't implemented better is beyond me, too. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21292283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21292283 for instructions.
    - currysausage 7y ago
      No autocomplete this way, though
    - majkinetor 7y ago
      Or just use plugin like Vimium that makes this feature cross browser.
  - wging 7y ago
    Create a bookmark with %S for the search query (%s if you need escaping) and a keyword that matches what you want to type as a prefix.

maverick74 7y ago

Yeap, Firefox is shooting themselves in the foot on this one, if you ask me!

Kaiyou 7y ago
I'm pretty sure it's intentional at this point. You don't go shooting yourself in the foot, reload and do it again consistently for years without intent.
- maverick74 7y ago
  hum... You know, looking more carefully over the question i came to the conclusion that you're probably right!!! They're probably wishing a hammer this xmas to hammer themselves over and over and over... just for the fun of it...

abhinavsharma 7y ago

This title is a little misleading. The original title of the post is "Search Engine add-ons to be removed from addons.mozilla.org", which implies that a special class of addons will be removed from the online store and merged with regular extensions. Firefox has never supported OpenSearch in the same way Chrome has, where you can type in "yout" + tab and search YouTube immediately. Opensearch engines could be added to firefox from this page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search-tools/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search-tools/ .This in practice was just an extension but a different schema. They probably just want to consolidate and maintain only one schema for all extensions. Now, it is still truly surprising to me that it's easier to use third-party search in Chrome than in Firefox, given all of Mozilla's talk about the Google monopoly. In Chrome, adding a search engine is as simple as going to chrome://settings/searchEngines and adding a string like "bing.com?q=%s" while in Firefox the only way I can find out so far is packaging an extension and loading it up.

sorenjan 7y ago
You used to be able to make an XML file with the search query and base64 encoded icon and put it in the search engines folder in your profile. It wasn't the easiest way for non technical users, but once you knew how it wasn't bad. It made it easy to backup, together with bookmarks.html.
- tveita 7y ago
  As of at least Firefox 69.0.3, you can right click most query fields and choose "Add a keyword for this search". It works about the same in e.g. Opera and Vivaldi. It's unclear if the "intent to deprecate OpenSearch" also means removing this functionality.
  - sorenjan 7y ago
    But those are keywords in the URL ("Awesome") bar though, right? I prefer to use the search bar for search and URL bar for URLs. As far as I remember that functionality doesn't use OpenSearch but instead save the search query string as a bookmark.

sorenjan 7y ago

Does this mean that they're also removing the search field? Do I have to create an extension and sign it for every site I want to search on that doesn't have an extension on their own?

kevin_b_er 7y ago
Looks like it. You must now have approval from AMO to have a entry in the search field.
sp332 7y ago
They're not getting rid of the search field. It links directly to code examples for how to add search engines using the new API!

mfer 7y ago

I hope this is as easy as someone writing an extension that restores the functionality. Maybe this can spur some innovation for Firefox users via extensions.

sorenjan 7y ago
Extensions can add address bar suggestions, but not a new search bar. It's unclear if Mozilla intends to remove that as well, I haven't seen any webextensions that add a search provider to it. There are several extensions that use userscripts, like Greasemonkey and Tampermoney, so loading the search manifest files shouldn't be a problem. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/user_interface https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web...

warbiscuit 7y ago

That seems really ass-backward, and not just because I use the search feature a lot. If I'm reading that right, they're deprecating support for discoverable browser-independant markup for searches; and replacing it with the requirement that each site actively develop (and maintain!) a software plugin for every browser their users might want to use. The whole point of a "user agent" was to go out and do things for me on the web; and the idealistic goal was that each person could choose an agent suited for them, which then had tools to programmatically discover and interact with the web in a common manner (reducing engineering load on the webdevs). And I don't want to try and use a separate search tool (with new flashing graphics and ads!!!!) for every site I go to... I want a single search tool, like FF offers right now. (Aside: not to mention chrome's "auto-discovery of opensearch when you tab after typing a domain" is actually MORE useful than FF's manual mode!). Taking a step back and removing support for a declarative api seems to me like the really wrong direction for an open web. Instead of sites supporting a single declarative browser-independent markup; they now have to deal with a long tail of (2-3 + who knows how many) browsers; and users with a niche browser have to spend effort convincing every site to support their browser. Why not try to improve the opensearch markup instead?

warbiscuit 7y ago
Followup - I'd actually been using chrome a bit more heavily; and was wanting to use FF more, just to support open standards. One of the main things I was missing was being able to type in google docs domain, tab, and type a document. I was planning to research how to make something similar work in FF, and now I know how, and that they're removing it :(
- myfonj 7y ago
  There is ancient feature of regular bookmarks to serve as "search keywords" [1]: just give it a some keyword and use `%s` in place of URL you want to substitute with value encoded as URI fragment (IIRC, or `%S` to be used more verbatim). In Firefox it is directly in "New bookmark" form; in Chrome it is dug somewhere in "Search engines" corner of settings. For example setting keyword `t` for uri `data:text/plain,%S` and entering `t foo` into location bar will navigate you to `data:text/plain,foo`, i.e. "make document". If Google Docs have GET endpoint for creating documents, it should work. For searching you can apparenly use `https://docs.google.com/document/?q=%s` https://docs.google.com/document/?q=%s`. [1] https://www-archive.mozilla.org/docs/end-user/keywords https://www-archive.mozilla.org/docs/end-user/keywords

mindcrime 7y ago

Yay, another victory for Open Standards and the Open We... uh, oh wait. Never mind. I'm just going to go crawl under a rock somewhere and cry now.

aswan 7y ago
What are you crying about? Both Firefox and Chrome support a common format for defining search engines from add-ons: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/manifest.json/chrome_settings_overrides https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web... https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/settings_override https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/settings_override The fact that it doesn't have "open" in its name doesn't actually make it any less open or interoperable. This is about standardizing on having a single and modern way to define search engines, nothing more and nothing less.
- Macha 7y ago
  There are two separate gatekeepers in AMO and the CWS. On the other hand, OpenSearch is used for the "Add search for this field" option which just needs some metadata defined on the web page. If they were just removing OpenSearch in xpi on AMO, that'd be fine, but the post says they intend to remove OpenSearch as a whole.
- dictum 7y ago
  > Both Firefox and Chrome support a common format for defining search engines from add-ons ...which have nothing to do with the Open Web, mentioned in the parent reply. Both require participating in, and consequently adhering to the terms of, stores operated by third parties.
  - aswan 7y ago
    > ..which have nothing to do with the Open Web, Which, in turn, has nothing to do with the origin article. Read it again, it is only about how search engines are defined inside add-ons.

AdmiralAsshat 7y ago

Well, that blows. I know a good number of the search engines I use have shortcuts in DuckDuckGo, but I felt pretty clever when I discovered I could configure Firefox to search Wikipedia/Amazon/IMDB directly rather than going through DDG intermediary. It also avoided clogging my address bar suggestions with: https://duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSpecial%3ASearch%3Fsearch%3Dtrueos%26go%3DGo https://duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipe... etc.

tannhaeuser 7y ago

As we're approaching the end of the decade, for posteriority we should put up a site with 2000's and 1990's web features that we took for granted (such as RSS, also used by OpenSearch result listings) but don't have anymore in 2010's web of shit.

kgwxd 7y ago
RSS is not dead, it's just not advertised much anymore. It's still the only way I "subscribe" to anything.
- avian 7y ago
  Maybe not completely dead yet, but each time any webpage gets a redesign these days, they usually kill RSS feeds. It's more or less a niche "old web" tech now.

spinningslate 7y ago

I'm.. at a loss. Please, if any Mozillers are on here, can you explain? I want Mozilla to be successful as a proponent of the open web. I've said before I'd gladly pay for it. With real, hard, proper money. My biggest concern is the unhealthy dependence on Google. I want a successful Mozilla precisely because I value the free web, not the contorted surveillance monster that Google, Facebook et al seem intent on. So in the absence of convincing rationale, I assume announcements like this to be nefarious intervention at Google's behest. Return on that $300M "contribution". Please, Mozilla. Don't give in to the dark side. There is a palpable increase in privacy awareness - you can be at the nexus of growing it, and grow yourself accordingly. Or you can side with the Emperor. Who will crush you once you've served your purpose. OK, maybe that's dubiously allegorical. Here's the brutal commercial interpretation. The _only_ way for you to reverse your declining market share is to have a differentiator. People need a reason to use Firefox. You can choose that path. Google isn't "supporting" you - it's adopted the "embrace, extend, extinguish" mantra so beloved of 90s/00s era Microsoft. To be clear: you're well into stage 3. Seems to me you have two choices. Find a differentiator and adopt a growth business plan for independence. Or remain at best Google's sop against anti-competitive accusations, and be fully extinguished when you're not needed any more.

deleted 7y ago
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apostacy 7y ago
I have said this over and over again. Look back at the initial success when they were up against Internet Explorer 6. They offered users what Microsoft wouldn't. They didn't hamstring themselves with IE6 compatibility, and instead broke the rules of what a browser was supposed to be by only considering what was best for the user, and spurning harmful standards and technologies. Where Microsoft hid extensions away in the registry, and their extensions had degenerated to the point where most of them were malicious, Firefox did the revolutionary thing of offering direct access to them by users. There's a lot wrong with Chrome, like their draconian and invasive updater that sometimes damages people's computers and can not be easily turned off.[1] Or how Chrome's extensions, while safer, are also crippled and prone to abuse by their forced updates. Mozilla could easily leverage Google's weaknesses against them, as they did with Microsoft. Mozilla is not a for-profit platform, they can afford to make the things Google can not. They can have a powerful community driven extension architecture that empowers users to do things Google never would. So of course instead of improving and securing their old extension architecture, or replacing it with something just as powerful, they copied Chrome again. It may be hard to believe, but including a built in popup blocker was revolutionary. It was called "irresponsible" by advertisers, and forced everyone else to change. Could you ever imagine Mozilla undermining the big players like that today? Even though bold moves like that are what got them their success in the first place. It wasn't branding or PR or any of that crap! I think the only good thing they've done is containers. And containers are such a good thing for users that I am convinced that many in Mozilla were opposed to it and fought against it, and that it will be deprecated with a flimsy UX metrics justification. And toadies on HN will try to justify it because "why are you thinking about this so much? This is fine, stop complaining, jeez." One of the smartest things Mozilla used to do was not try to implement bad technologies. They didn't try to re-create the quirks of the Trident engine; they didn't let Micosoft dictate the standards, so Javascript could not eject the CD tray, and you could not change the color of the scroll bars! They didn't waste effort trying to copy Microsoft's Windows-first proprietary ActiveX model. A much better compromise was the community created IETab extension, which just ran an instance of Internet Explorer in one of the tabs for when you needed it.[3] Could you imagine the Mozilla of today saying that if you wanted to watch DRM'd Netflix, you should just use Chrome? Is Firefox even technically capable of having something like Chrome tab anymore? Think of the resources that would be freed up if they stopped trying to have feature parity with Microsoft/Apple/Google. They just need to have the courage to say "that technology is evil, we won't support it. Maybe someone will make an extension to support it". Instead, essential technologies like RSS are deprecated and left to the community to implement, while DRM and proprietary and problematic standards are given first class support. Mozilla has made all of the wrong moves in the last 10 years. Their priorities are completely misguided. And I am certain that if they just centered the user over the big platforms, they would experience more popularity than a billion dollars in marketing and PR. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21064663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21064663 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21233041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21233041 [3]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/682975 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/682975

lultimouomo 7y ago

Besides the merit of the choice of deprecating OpenSearch, what kind of timeline is that? 40 days from deprecation to removal from AMO?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Mathnerd314 7y ago

So instead of hhttps://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/OpenSearch#OpenSearch_description_file https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/OpenSearch#Open... we have https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/manifest.json/chrome_settings_overrides https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web.... Simple enough and it seems OpenSearch will still work embedded on websites for a while. But it's unclear how they plan to get website owners to migrate.

zdunn 7y ago
> But it's unclear how they plan to get website owners to migrate. And it's unclear why they should have to. OpenSearch is a standard that all modern browsers currently support. Why should a site author have to support OpenSearch for every browser and build/maintain a WebExtension just for Firefox?

kevin_b_er 7y ago

Looks like Mozilla may also be planning to kill the search bar. With this change, how can anything be added to the search bar itself? As usual, Mozilla just follows Google lead rather than innovating browser features anymore. How does mandated signed addons get you "offers users more controls for opting into changes"? They offer me less controls, as someone else (AMO) controls what I may opt into.

sp332 7y ago
Search engines will be added by regular extensions. It says this in the second paragraph and links to code examples for how to do it.
- hu3 7y ago
  How is it desirable or even acceptable to deteriorate user and developer experience like this? Firefox will require users to install an extension in order to add search engines instead of just visiting websites. And developers will have to create extensions that barely anyone knows about let alone bother to install. Much worse than today's solution of including a little code in your website and have users autodiscover your search engine: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <OpenSearchDescription xmlns="a9...spec"> <ShortName>Website Title</ShortName> <Description>Search my website</Description> <Url type="application/rss+xml" template="mysite.com/search?q={searchTerms}"/> </OpenSearchDescription>
  - sp332 7y ago
    Yeah, probably. I'm just answering the first two sentences of the post I was replying to.

maverick74 7y ago

Link to Discussion: https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/deprecation-of-opensearch-xml-add-ons-current-users/ https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/deprecation-of-opensearch-xm...

maverick74 7y ago

Link to the discussion: https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/deprecation-of-opensearch-xml-add-ons-current-users/46868 https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/deprecation-of-opensearch-xm...

maverick74 7y ago

https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/deprecation-of-opensearch-xml-add-ons-current-users/46868 https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/deprecation-of-opensearch-xm...

Endy 7y ago

Well, this is a great reason for Firefox users to remove the Google search engine from their browser and use DuckDuckGo. Better results and the bang syntax!

m31415 7y ago

This is nuts. Mozilla should at least allow the user to set a custom search engine using an about:config option, like the old keyword.URL [1] option, which was removed after Firefox 23. I use DuckDuckGo with several customizations as POST parameters and it would be very cumbersome if I have to write an extension to use DDG the way I want it. [1] http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keyword.url http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keyword.url

carapace 7y ago

Mozilla is basically the fig leaf covering Google's hegemony, they get all their money from Google, they use Google to track Firefox users ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14753546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14753546 ).

nine_k 7y ago

Dear mods, the current title is incorrect and misleading. Please restore the title as the linked page has it: "Search Engine add-ons to be removed from addons.mozilla.org".

rhencke 7y ago
In what way is it incorrect or misleading? The first paragraph of the article states "Mozilla intends to deprecate OpenSearch and eventually remove it from Firefox."

citrusx 7y ago

I wonder if it's possible to write one extension using WebExtensions, which does a better job supporting OpenSearch? I know that WebExtensions is limited, but all one would need to do is read the OpenSearch data, store it somewhere for later recall, and open up some path in the ui to search on a site that we stored the info for. And, of course, launch a tab with the results in it. Sounds like a nice little side project.