Ask HN: Why is creating a custom Firefox search engine so difficult?

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2 points by turova 2798 days ago

This simple issue has been bothering me for a couple of years now and I've never been able to find anything resembling a solution - I like having control of the search engine options in my browser and want to add custom searches. Chrome maintains the tradition of allowing a URL string with some predefined parameters. Firefox, on the other hand, requires some sort of custom XML mess with no clear and simple way to create a custom search engine from scratch. I see some minimal benefits, such as the ability to pair an icon with a search engine and the ability to use short names, but I just want to type a search into the search bar and have it send me to a custom search of my choice.

Is this shift to OpenSearch format mostly to prevent people from doing away with Mozilla's referral codes in the search strings? I just can't see any good reason this must be so complicated with so little customizability.

To be completely clear, I want to add the equivalent of "https://<customsearchengine>.com/q={searchparam}" to replace any/all of the built-in search options and am not currently looking for other solutions, such as websites with lists of predefined search engine queries. I also don't want to be dependent on finding some online service to do this for me. Any suggestions or feedback on why this process has become so complicated?

1 comments

lixtra 2798 days ago

Not the same UX but the same functionality is provided by smart keywords [1].

[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-search-from-address...

In our company we use it conveniently to quickly access intranet services like jira.

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turova 2798 days ago

Thanks for the response, but I don't think this is the same functionality. Keywords are really useful for services that get searched sparingly. I shouldn't need to use a keyword for my default search.

What I'm looking to do is just be able to type text into the address/search bar and have it show up on a search engine with my custom parameters. I know I can add a keyword, but that's an extra prefix I need to type every time to work around something that shouldn't be an issue in the first place.

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