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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 t

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.

by zdunn 7y ago

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.