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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

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.
  - wkat4242 1y ago
    Yeah to be honest I read the bugzilla thread but I didn't find it very clear. It's really meant for the in-crowd. Which makes sense for a bugtracker but not for a HN article. And yes good point. I can also imagine using it for stuff that's not strictly a search engine as such.
wildpeaks 1y ago
All you need is a bookmark, no extension needed: the "keyword" value is how it's called and "%s" in the url is the placeholder for the query. For example, create a bookmark with keyword "youtube" and url "https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s". Then whenever you type "youtube something" in the address bar, it shows you the results directly. The %s trick existed for so long, it even worked back in Internet Explorer.
- wkat4242 1y ago
  Yes and you can even set it as default as I have done. So you don't need to type the 'youtube' or whatever. It works exactly like a builtin one.
  - lxgr 1y ago
    How can you set it as default?
    - wkat4242 1y ago
      You just select it under settings. Every search engine you have visited that supports opensearch automatically shows up in the list.
      - lxgr 1y ago
        Interesting, for me they don't. I can only choose between Google, DuckDuckGo, and Wikipedia, even though I have more custom search engines available. They work via their configured shortcuts, but they don't appear in the search settings.
- xingped 1y ago
  That must be what the extension I use has been doing, but what a bizarre way to hide such a useful feature.

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.
- wkat4242 1y ago
  Yeah to be honest I read the bugzilla thread but I didn't find it very clear. It's really meant for the in-crowd. Which makes sense for a bugtracker but not for a HN article. And yes good point. I can also imagine using it for stuff that's not strictly a search engine as such.

wildpeaks 1y ago

All you need is a bookmark, no extension needed: the "keyword" value is how it's called and "%s" in the url is the placeholder for the query. For example, create a bookmark with keyword "youtube" and url "https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s". Then whenever you type "youtube something" in the address bar, it shows you the results directly. The %s trick existed for so long, it even worked back in Internet Explorer.

wkat4242 1y ago
Yes and you can even set it as default as I have done. So you don't need to type the 'youtube' or whatever. It works exactly like a builtin one.
- lxgr 1y ago
  How can you set it as default?
  - wkat4242 1y ago
    You just select it under settings. Every search engine you have visited that supports opensearch automatically shows up in the list.
    - lxgr 1y ago
      Interesting, for me they don't. I can only choose between Google, DuckDuckGo, and Wikipedia, even though I have more custom search engines available. They work via their configured shortcuts, but they don't appear in the search settings.
xingped 1y ago
That must be what the extension I use has been doing, but what a bizarre way to hide such a useful feature.