7 ms·

Firefox now allows you to add custom search engine manually by default

50 points by gslin 1y ago

Onavo 1y ago
Well, it certainly makes it easier for them to sidestep political questions about why they stopped including Yandex as a search option.
- metalman 1y ago
  "Firefox now allows" more than a side step or a two step it's going to be a whole dance where they remember that, oh ya hey!, look, users!. Exactly where did all, ALL, the horking huge piles of money go?, which in the current political environment could be a question that not only get's asked, but answered
- Larrikin 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - gertop 1y ago
    Yandex.com has divested from yandex.ru and the former is nominally not based in Russia. I personally believe they are still 100% managed by Russia, as I'm sure you do, but this is all feels and not facts. Facts is yandex.com isn't sanctioned so that can't/shouldn't be your reason for wanting to silence them.
    - TiredOfLife 1y ago
      Yandex.com was not divested. In early 2024 majority of all Yandex foreign assets were sold to russians. https://ir.yandex/press-releases?year=2024&id=05-02-2024 https://ir.yandex/press-releases?year=2024&id=05-02-2024 The only parts that left outside russia are some AI related companies.
      - otabdeveloper4 1y ago
        Uhm, no, you must not be allowed to use a Russian search engine under any circumstances. That would be undemocratic and against free speech principles.
        weare138 1y ago
        You can just type in the URL and make it your default search engine. No one is stopping you. Or you could just move to Russia and bask in that democracy and free speech you seem to perceive to be lacking here. Again no one is stopping you.
        otabdeveloper4 1y ago
        Completely agree. Any citizen who doesn't agree with our democratic and inclusive values should be immediately stripped of rights and shipped off to Russia.
        Larrikin 1y ago
        Yes obviously
wkat4242 1y ago
Uhm what am I not getting? This has always been possible. Edit: I think what's new is the UI to add the new engine by typing the URL by hand. Previously engines needed to support OpenSearch to auto-add them (but you could easily add custom ones this way). However pretty much all of them do (it's no trouble, just some XHTML in the page). I don't know why you would do it by hand.
- xingped 1y ago
  The only way I could ever add custom search engines was through a separate extension. I have no idea how you've been doing this such that you think it's always been possible?
  - wkat4242 1y ago
    Huh no? I've just added it in settings. No custom extension needed. I'm pretty extension-averse because I already need so many :) Ublock, Sponsorblock, Dark Reader, password manager, consent-o-matic, sideberry I really can't do without. But I've always been able to do it. All I had to do was to simply visit my SearXNG instance once, then it would pick it up and put it in the list of search engines (OpenSearch API) and then I could just set it as default. One thing I could not do was edit search engines (e.g. the URL they visit). I still can't do that in fact but maybe that's new?
    - DaSHacka 1y ago
      If you check the bugzilla thread in the OP, this is specifically about adding manual search engines outside of automatic OpenSearch support. Theres a panel where you fill out the name, search URL, suggestion URL, and search keyword yourself, under settings. You can add whatever you like, even if its not OpenSearch compatible, just like you already could on Chrome (for the better part of a decade, mind you) If a dev is lazy and doesnt incorporate OpenSearch functionality you can homebrew it easily this way. I personally use it quite often to restrict searches for engines that otherwise only support OpenSearch for their entire catalog. For example, I have seperate `@ma` for manga and `@an` for anime via MAL, where by default (IIRC) they only have the combined "search everything" advertised through OpenSearch. I also use it to search individual boards on foolfuuka archive sites, as the default OpenSearch advertisement suffers the same issue as MAL where it's only for searching every board on the site at once. I'm sure I have even more examples on my browser, I actually use it all the time so I'm glad this is getting mainlined rather than nixed. I use Librewolf, so they already had this enabled by tweaking the corresponding about:config setting themselves.
Yeul 1y ago
I was setting up a new PC yesterday. I did the "use edge to install Firefox" thing and my experience with the internet without ad blocking was traumatising. But anyway it was nice to see that FF had added startengine to the choices for search engine.
- nicbou 1y ago
  It's quite shocking, isn't it? Only my iPad gives me the unfiltered web, to discourage me from using it as a browsing device. It's very effective.
  - oktoberpaard 1y ago
    Safari on iOS does support adblockers, in case you didn’t know. And I’m not taking about DNS level blocking, I really mean browser extensions. I’m using AdGuard, but there are other popular options too.
    - nicbou 1y ago
      That's what I use on my iPhone, but my iPad is meant to be an offline, low-distraction device.
  - doright 1y ago
    Orion Browser gives you the original uBO on iOS plus some other web extensions, depending on what APIs they use.
- msgodel 1y ago
  Kind of crazy to hear people conscious of these problems still run Windows.
- xeonmc 1y ago
  Next time you can just do winget install 9nzvdkpmr9rd which installs Firefox from the Microsoft store. Or `Mozilla.Firefox` to install from winget-pkgs if the ID is too hard to remember, but the msstore install is cleaner IME. You could also use the Microsoft Store directly which is still better than wading through Edge.

50 points by gslin 1y ago

Well, it certainly makes it easier for them to sidestep political questions about why they stopped including Yandex as a search option.

metalman 1y ago
"Firefox now allows" more than a side step or a two step it's going to be a whole dance where they remember that, oh ya hey!, look, users!. Exactly where did all, ALL, the horking huge piles of money go?, which in the current political environment could be a question that not only get's asked, but answered
Larrikin 1y ago
[flagged]
- gertop 1y ago
  Yandex.com has divested from yandex.ru and the former is nominally not based in Russia. I personally believe they are still 100% managed by Russia, as I'm sure you do, but this is all feels and not facts. Facts is yandex.com isn't sanctioned so that can't/shouldn't be your reason for wanting to silence them.
  - TiredOfLife 1y ago
    Yandex.com was not divested. In early 2024 majority of all Yandex foreign assets were sold to russians. https://ir.yandex/press-releases?year=2024&id=05-02-2024 https://ir.yandex/press-releases?year=2024&id=05-02-2024 The only parts that left outside russia are some AI related companies.
    - otabdeveloper4 1y ago
      Uhm, no, you must not be allowed to use a Russian search engine under any circumstances. That would be undemocratic and against free speech principles.
      - weare138 1y ago
        You can just type in the URL and make it your default search engine. No one is stopping you. Or you could just move to Russia and bask in that democracy and free speech you seem to perceive to be lacking here. Again no one is stopping you.
        otabdeveloper4 1y ago
        Completely agree. Any citizen who doesn't agree with our democratic and inclusive values should be immediately stripped of rights and shipped off to Russia.
        Larrikin 1y ago
        Yes obviously

wkat4242 1y ago

Uhm what am I not getting? This has always been possible. Edit: I think what's new is the UI to add the new engine by typing the URL by hand. Previously engines needed to support OpenSearch to auto-add them (but you could easily add custom ones this way). However pretty much all of them do (it's no trouble, just some XHTML in the page). I don't know why you would do it by hand.

xingped 1y ago
The only way I could ever add custom search engines was through a separate extension. I have no idea how you've been doing this such that you think it's always been possible?
- wkat4242 1y ago
  Huh no? I've just added it in settings. No custom extension needed. I'm pretty extension-averse because I already need so many :) Ublock, Sponsorblock, Dark Reader, password manager, consent-o-matic, sideberry I really can't do without. But I've always been able to do it. All I had to do was to simply visit my SearXNG instance once, then it would pick it up and put it in the list of search engines (OpenSearch API) and then I could just set it as default. One thing I could not do was edit search engines (e.g. the URL they visit). I still can't do that in fact but maybe that's new?
  - DaSHacka 1y ago
    If you check the bugzilla thread in the OP, this is specifically about adding manual search engines outside of automatic OpenSearch support. Theres a panel where you fill out the name, search URL, suggestion URL, and search keyword yourself, under settings. You can add whatever you like, even if its not OpenSearch compatible, just like you already could on Chrome (for the better part of a decade, mind you) If a dev is lazy and doesnt incorporate OpenSearch functionality you can homebrew it easily this way. I personally use it quite often to restrict searches for engines that otherwise only support OpenSearch for their entire catalog. For example, I have seperate `@ma` for manga and `@an` for anime via MAL, where by default (IIRC) they only have the combined "search everything" advertised through OpenSearch. I also use it to search individual boards on foolfuuka archive sites, as the default OpenSearch advertisement suffers the same issue as MAL where it's only for searching every board on the site at once. I'm sure I have even more examples on my browser, I actually use it all the time so I'm glad this is getting mainlined rather than nixed. I use Librewolf, so they already had this enabled by tweaking the corresponding about:config setting themselves.

Yeul 1y ago

I was setting up a new PC yesterday. I did the "use edge to install Firefox" thing and my experience with the internet without ad blocking was traumatising. But anyway it was nice to see that FF had added startengine to the choices for search engine.

nicbou 1y ago
It's quite shocking, isn't it? Only my iPad gives me the unfiltered web, to discourage me from using it as a browsing device. It's very effective.
- oktoberpaard 1y ago
  Safari on iOS does support adblockers, in case you didn’t know. And I’m not taking about DNS level blocking, I really mean browser extensions. I’m using AdGuard, but there are other popular options too.
  - nicbou 1y ago
    That's what I use on my iPhone, but my iPad is meant to be an offline, low-distraction device.
- doright 1y ago
  Orion Browser gives you the original uBO on iOS plus some other web extensions, depending on what APIs they use.
msgodel 1y ago
Kind of crazy to hear people conscious of these problems still run Windows.
xeonmc 1y ago
Next time you can just do winget install 9nzvdkpmr9rd which installs Firefox from the Microsoft store. Or `Mozilla.Firefox` to install from winget-pkgs if the ID is too hard to remember, but the msstore install is cleaner IME. You could also use the Microsoft Store directly which is still better than wading through Edge.