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MacOS allows you to "hard click" (long click) a text selection in any application, which pops up a bubble that lets you do a web search for that phrase. But the

MacOS allows you to "hard click" (long click) a text selection in any application, which pops up a bubble that lets you do a web search for that phrase. But the search only launches Safari. I wasted at least a couple hours scouring boards and kext files, screwing with automation macros, trying to find a way to make this potentially helpful shortcut not open Safari, but instead open Firefox. Eventually I just gave up. Apple buried the decision so deep in the OS that it's basically impossible to change the default browser for search.

barbs 3y ago
It's bullshit like this that makes linux attractive.
- ARandomerDude 3y ago
  I always think this, then remember I also like sound, Bluetooth, and low-power sleep. Maybe 2025 will be the year of the Linux desktop.
  - Sprocklem 3y ago
    Support for the other two may vary based on hardware, but sound seems to have mostly been solved by pipewire.
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    All three work flawlessly for me. It takes either luck or looking up known incompatibilities before purchasing a laptop, but it's no longer 2008. Not buying hardware from certain vendors (Nvidia) helps improve your chances. The lack of hibernation with an encrypted system is an annoying problem, though. There's a good reason it doesn't work, and the explanation has made me doubt other hibernation implementations, but it's annoying that bypassing this restriction is so hard.
    - Jenda_ 3y ago
      > The lack of hibernation with an encrypted system is an annoying problem, though. I don't understand. Hibernation to an encrypted swap partition (and even to a swap file on an encrypted rootfs) works normally. > Not buying hardware from certain vendors (Nvidia) helps improve your chances. nVidia just works if you accept the proprietary driver. On the other hand, with AMD, you get fun like this: https://www.wezm.net/v2/posts/2020/linux-amdgpu-pixel-format/ https://www.wezm.net/v2/posts/2020/linux-amdgpu-pixel-format.... Of course, if you don't need high GPU power, use Intel integrated GPU, which works the best.
      - jeroenhd 3y ago
        Last time I checked (three months ago?) you needed to patch the kernel to enable hibernation in kernel lockdown mode. I think OpenSUSE enabled these kernel patches by default, but that caused issues with secure boot. Nvidia "just working" is a matter of luck and patience. I'm on kernel 6.7 on my laptop with the latest Nvidia driver and I'm booting with special Nvidia command line flags and running with carious Nvidia specific tweaks to make the thing not drain my battery the moment it boots up. Wayland support remains spotty on multiple compositors. It'll probably Just Work with a whole bunch of extra power consumption on desktop, as it does on mine, assuming you don't particularly care about Wayland support. Wayland support works in that there is content rendered to the screen, but hardware acceleration is spotty and has weird performance issues that aren't present on Intel iGPUs. You can make all of this work, but out of the box it doesn't.
        Jenda_ 3y ago
        Oh, OK, I didn't think about lockdown mode, just a regular rootfs encryption. I still use X, as Wayland does not seem to implement all the features I'm using (but it's improving, so I expect I can go to Wayland in a few years).
        jeroenhd 3y ago
        Lockdown mode is a feature of Linux that's automatically enabled if it detects some circumstances. IIRC, it's a requirement for getting your stuff signed to allow you to do secure boot (without loading a manual secure boot key, of course). I would say it's enabled on most first-time Linux users' computers. As for Wayland, I learned the hard way that modern distributions have removed the Wayland block on Nvidia drivers, and many will go Wayland-first after install. It's easy to switch back, but only if you know what X11 and Wayland even are in the first place. Of course distros have to try to push people to Wayland, because Red Hat and desktop environments are moving towards Wayland-only for new releases in a couple of years, but that's not without its unfortunate consequences. In a few years, Wayland has gone from "doesn't even start" to "usable with a whole bunch of quirks and issues", I'm sure it'll work fine when the time comes to abandon X.org. But for now, the defaults are a bit weird. In practice, distros can pick between "some weird issues on Nvidia hardware" and "extremely limited touchpad gesture support" and it's tough to make a choice there.
  - beretguy 3y ago
    Never had any issues with sound and Bluetooth with my Mint. And don’t care about low power sleep so don’t know if it is buggy or not.
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    Probably twice a day I accidentally bring up the emoji keyboard. Macos makes me grow wearier with each update. Eventually a straw will break this camels back.
    - jstarfish 3y ago
      Or you'll stop resisting and start communicating using only emojis.
sccxy 3y ago
Safari and Firefox does not allow other search engines also. For Chrome/Edge I have added a lot of small shortcuts for IMDB, post tracking codes, geoip and many more "not search" things to search bar. Just keyword and %s in search url is needed.
- aragilar 3y ago
  Wait, what? There's OpenSearch and web extensions which let you add more search engines (removing builtin ones is harder though).
  - sccxy 3y ago
    Ok, then tell me how to add search engine to Safari iOS/Desktop and Firefox Desktop without building and downloading extra extensions. Search url: https://api.hackertarget.com/geoip/?q=%s https://api.hackertarget.com/geoip/?q=%s
    - metaphor 3y ago
      For Firefox Desktop, just create a bookmark with your search URL and assign a keyword to it, e.g. URL: https://api.hackertarget.com/geoip/?q=%s Keyword: @geoip ...then Alt+D and queue off the keyword directly from address bar.
      - sccxy 3y ago
        Okay, it is possible. But firefox UX is the greatest. You must use bookmarks to config search. And now I have many nonsense bookmarks because I want to use them as search
        morsch 3y ago
        The UI is weird, that said, the feature goes back 20 years, see e.g. http://johnbokma.com/firefox/keymarks-explained/comments.html http://johnbokma.com/firefox/keymarks-explained/comments.htm... I wonder if it existed all the way back in a version of Netscape Navigator? On Firefox Android, you can also just go to into settings, search, manage search engines, + add search engine. So, basically, exactly where you would expect it. I think on desktop it's just as easy? Can't you just right click on most submit forms?
tripleSex 3y ago
I utilize the 'select/highlight`–'search web` flow numerous times throughout the day. I am on iOS and, like you, was unable to force the 'search web` highlight selection option to default to a non-Safari browser. However, I use the functionality you speak of through a different invocation: 'select/highlight`–'define`–'search web`. Interestingly enough, this procedure — once a non-Safari browser is set as the default web browser for the iOS device and/or the specification of preferred search engine — redirects towards the user's browser (as well as search engine) of choice. I shall investigate these functionalities' behavior on macOS — id est, desktop — tomorrow possibly and will get back to you noduerme. {Edit: deletion: " . . . ~such~ redirects . . . "}
moffkalast 3y ago
the EU Commission would like to know your location
- deely3 3y ago
  Meh. Apple already know your location, and its not in EU.
- noduerme 3y ago
  I have a feeling this will be next on the DOJ's list as well.
kjkjadksj 3y ago
I make that long click happen all the time by mistake trying to select text, all thanks to the phantom trackpad. I’m not sure why that was ever needed, the only time the trackpad would shatter on the old one from clicking it was when the battery was already swollen.
- noduerme 3y ago
  I kind of like the long click, but another thing I spent hours looking for was a way to increase the pressure needed for it. As well as to increase the haptic feedback for both kinds of clicks past the maximum setting in the system preferences. Couldn't find a way to do either. Some hacker I am.
aitchnyu 3y ago
That feature causes freezes for seconds thanks to high ping times from India. I also dreaded Ubuntu menu for the same reason.

barbs 3y ago

It's bullshit like this that makes linux attractive.

ARandomerDude 3y ago
I always think this, then remember I also like sound, Bluetooth, and low-power sleep. Maybe 2025 will be the year of the Linux desktop.
- Sprocklem 3y ago
  Support for the other two may vary based on hardware, but sound seems to have mostly been solved by pipewire.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  All three work flawlessly for me. It takes either luck or looking up known incompatibilities before purchasing a laptop, but it's no longer 2008. Not buying hardware from certain vendors (Nvidia) helps improve your chances. The lack of hibernation with an encrypted system is an annoying problem, though. There's a good reason it doesn't work, and the explanation has made me doubt other hibernation implementations, but it's annoying that bypassing this restriction is so hard.
  - Jenda_ 3y ago
    > The lack of hibernation with an encrypted system is an annoying problem, though. I don't understand. Hibernation to an encrypted swap partition (and even to a swap file on an encrypted rootfs) works normally. > Not buying hardware from certain vendors (Nvidia) helps improve your chances. nVidia just works if you accept the proprietary driver. On the other hand, with AMD, you get fun like this: https://www.wezm.net/v2/posts/2020/linux-amdgpu-pixel-format/ https://www.wezm.net/v2/posts/2020/linux-amdgpu-pixel-format.... Of course, if you don't need high GPU power, use Intel integrated GPU, which works the best.
    - jeroenhd 3y ago
      Last time I checked (three months ago?) you needed to patch the kernel to enable hibernation in kernel lockdown mode. I think OpenSUSE enabled these kernel patches by default, but that caused issues with secure boot. Nvidia "just working" is a matter of luck and patience. I'm on kernel 6.7 on my laptop with the latest Nvidia driver and I'm booting with special Nvidia command line flags and running with carious Nvidia specific tweaks to make the thing not drain my battery the moment it boots up. Wayland support remains spotty on multiple compositors. It'll probably Just Work with a whole bunch of extra power consumption on desktop, as it does on mine, assuming you don't particularly care about Wayland support. Wayland support works in that there is content rendered to the screen, but hardware acceleration is spotty and has weird performance issues that aren't present on Intel iGPUs. You can make all of this work, but out of the box it doesn't.
      - Jenda_ 3y ago
        Oh, OK, I didn't think about lockdown mode, just a regular rootfs encryption. I still use X, as Wayland does not seem to implement all the features I'm using (but it's improving, so I expect I can go to Wayland in a few years).
        jeroenhd 3y ago
        Lockdown mode is a feature of Linux that's automatically enabled if it detects some circumstances. IIRC, it's a requirement for getting your stuff signed to allow you to do secure boot (without loading a manual secure boot key, of course). I would say it's enabled on most first-time Linux users' computers. As for Wayland, I learned the hard way that modern distributions have removed the Wayland block on Nvidia drivers, and many will go Wayland-first after install. It's easy to switch back, but only if you know what X11 and Wayland even are in the first place. Of course distros have to try to push people to Wayland, because Red Hat and desktop environments are moving towards Wayland-only for new releases in a couple of years, but that's not without its unfortunate consequences. In a few years, Wayland has gone from "doesn't even start" to "usable with a whole bunch of quirks and issues", I'm sure it'll work fine when the time comes to abandon X.org. But for now, the defaults are a bit weird. In practice, distros can pick between "some weird issues on Nvidia hardware" and "extremely limited touchpad gesture support" and it's tough to make a choice there.
- beretguy 3y ago
  Never had any issues with sound and Bluetooth with my Mint. And don’t care about low power sleep so don’t know if it is buggy or not.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  Probably twice a day I accidentally bring up the emoji keyboard. Macos makes me grow wearier with each update. Eventually a straw will break this camels back.
  - jstarfish 3y ago
    Or you'll stop resisting and start communicating using only emojis.

sccxy 3y ago

Safari and Firefox does not allow other search engines also. For Chrome/Edge I have added a lot of small shortcuts for IMDB, post tracking codes, geoip and many more "not search" things to search bar. Just keyword and %s in search url is needed.

aragilar 3y ago
Wait, what? There's OpenSearch and web extensions which let you add more search engines (removing builtin ones is harder though).
- sccxy 3y ago
  Ok, then tell me how to add search engine to Safari iOS/Desktop and Firefox Desktop without building and downloading extra extensions. Search url: https://api.hackertarget.com/geoip/?q=%s https://api.hackertarget.com/geoip/?q=%s
  - metaphor 3y ago
    For Firefox Desktop, just create a bookmark with your search URL and assign a keyword to it, e.g. URL: https://api.hackertarget.com/geoip/?q=%s Keyword: @geoip ...then Alt+D and queue off the keyword directly from address bar.
    - sccxy 3y ago
      Okay, it is possible. But firefox UX is the greatest. You must use bookmarks to config search. And now I have many nonsense bookmarks because I want to use them as search
      - morsch 3y ago
        The UI is weird, that said, the feature goes back 20 years, see e.g. http://johnbokma.com/firefox/keymarks-explained/comments.html http://johnbokma.com/firefox/keymarks-explained/comments.htm... I wonder if it existed all the way back in a version of Netscape Navigator? On Firefox Android, you can also just go to into settings, search, manage search engines, + add search engine. So, basically, exactly where you would expect it. I think on desktop it's just as easy? Can't you just right click on most submit forms?

tripleSex 3y ago

I utilize the 'select/highlight`–'search web` flow numerous times throughout the day. I am on iOS and, like you, was unable to force the 'search web` highlight selection option to default to a non-Safari browser. However, I use the functionality you speak of through a different invocation: 'select/highlight`–'define`–'search web`. Interestingly enough, this procedure — once a non-Safari browser is set as the default web browser for the iOS device and/or the specification of preferred search engine — redirects towards the user's browser (as well as search engine) of choice. I shall investigate these functionalities' behavior on macOS — id est, desktop — tomorrow possibly and will get back to you noduerme. {Edit: deletion: " . . . ~such~ redirects . . . "}

moffkalast 3y ago

the EU Commission would like to know your location

deely3 3y ago
Meh. Apple already know your location, and its not in EU.
noduerme 3y ago
I have a feeling this will be next on the DOJ's list as well.

kjkjadksj 3y ago

I make that long click happen all the time by mistake trying to select text, all thanks to the phantom trackpad. I’m not sure why that was ever needed, the only time the trackpad would shatter on the old one from clicking it was when the battery was already swollen.

noduerme 3y ago
I kind of like the long click, but another thing I spent hours looking for was a way to increase the pressure needed for it. As well as to increase the haptic feedback for both kinds of clicks past the maximum setting in the system preferences. Couldn't find a way to do either. Some hacker I am.

aitchnyu 3y ago

That feature causes freezes for seconds thanks to high ping times from India. I also dreaded Ubuntu menu for the same reason.