1195005 - There is no way to add a custom search engine or edit an existing one in about:preferences#search

Status: REOPENED

(Firefox :: Settings UI, enhancement)

Description

[Archil Imnadze]

It's been ages that other web browsers have the ability to add new custom search engines and/or edit existing ones. We the users need the ability to modify the list of search engines. We the users have strong reasons if you're asking why. Please, be kind and add the feature. Thank you!

Comment 1

[Archil Imnadze]

Any updates?

Comment 2

[Florian Quèze [:florian]]

Engines can be added either via OpenSearch discovery (you'll see a (+) badge above the glass icon of the search bar when a website offers OpenSearch engines) or from the add-ons website https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search-engines/

Comment 3

[Archil Imnadze]

I know both ways and they have flaws:
* When using OpenSearch discovery a website owner adds parameters to a search query which cannot be removed or edited. Sometimes it contains small parameters like where the search has come from. Sometimes it contains even tokens that identify the search engine installation. Thus binding every search term to each other. Which is a privacy issue.
* On the addons website the search engine authors may add some parameters that I would like to remove or edit but this impossible. Some search engines like DuckDuckGo offer customization for which I would like to have a custom search engine by adding additional parameters. Thus I would about using cookies.

I'm sure you've seen Chrome's implementation of search engines. Which has only one flaw. At least one search engine has to exist, but that's okay as long as you can remove every search engine including Google Search.

Comment 4

[Florian Quèze [:florian]]

If you want to customize the parameters of a search plugin, the best way seems to be to create a new search plugin, edit the xml file, and install that.

If you only need to use the engines from keyboards in the url bar and don't need the engine to appear in the search bar, the bookmark keyword feature may do what you want. See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-search-from-address-bar (once the bookmark is saved, you can edit the URL from the bookmark manager).

Comment 5

[Archil Imnadze]

You cannot edit a built-in search engine by creating a search plugin. You cannot even give your newly created search engine a name that's already built-in. And to my opinion, adding or editing a search engine is so trivial that a user shouldn't have to write an XML file for that. It can be done via interface.

I don't recommend Chrome to anyone but I suggest you to see how easy it is to add, edit and delete search engines in that browser.

The bookmark keywords feature doesn't allow users set it as a default search engine. Thus rendering it useless in that case.

Comment 6

[Florian Quèze [:florian]]

(In reply to Archil Imnadze from comment #5)
> You cannot edit a built-in search engine by creating a search plugin.

I don't think we want to allow editing built-in engines.

> I don't recommend Chrome to anyone but I suggest you to see how easy it is
> to add, edit and delete search engines in that browser.

I tried the Chrome search preference UI. It's interesting, but too simple to allow editing our built-in or OpenSearch-discovered engines. For example, it doesn't support showing/editing the URL used to fetch suggestions. If the reason why you want to edit the engine URL is privacy, the URL used for suggestions is at least as important, as it's the URL that gets all your keystrokes.

Being able to set as the default an engine that has been created by just entering an URL or from an input field is nice though.

> The bookmark keywords feature doesn't allow users set it as a default search
> engine.

I think we would get this by merging the bookmark keyword feature and the list of search engines. This is covered by bug 648398. Do you agree this is a duplicate of bug 648398?

Comment 7

[Archil Imnadze]

Bug 648398 seems to be a good idea but not really the same.

> I don't think we want to allow editing built-in engines.
Is there a way to create a search engine and name it "DuckDuckGo" and which would not be the same as built-in search engine of the same name. If so we can close this bug.

Comment 8

[bugzilla1]

While creating a search new engine can be an alternative to editing an existing one, it is only viable when the user can use an already installed engine as a reference, even if they do not have access to the original engine XML or to any web site.

An acceptable sequence of operations will be:
1. Export an existing search engine to a local XML file
2. Edit the file
3. Install the local file as a new search engine.

Comment 9

[Archil Imnadze]

> 2. Edit the file
> 3. Install the local file as a new search engine.
Will I be able to name the search engine as "DuckDuckGo"?

Comment 10

[Carlos [nohamelin]]

(In reply to bugzilla1 from comment #8)
> While creating a search new engine can be an alternative to editing an
> existing one, it is only viable when the user can use an already installed
> engine as a reference, even if they do not have access to the original
> engine XML or to any web site.
> 
> An acceptable sequence of operations will be:
> 1. Export an existing search engine to a local XML file
> 2. Edit the file
> 3. Install the local file as a new search engine.

I did an add-on to support this specific use case:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/search-engines-export-import/

Comment 11

[Archil Imnadze]

Man, this bug is not for importing/exporting search engines. It's for editing the existing ones. It's our right to change URLs or add/remove additional parameters to the search engines.

Comment 12

[Ricardo]

+1
Why is it so hard for Mozilla to see the obvious?

Just look at Opera, Vivaldi and Chrome. You can customize, add and remove search engines in a blink of eyes. For more than a decade.

In Firefox, however, search engines management is a pain.

Comment 13

[Archil Imnadze]

****, I no longer care.

Comment 15

[Mathew Hodson]

This bug should probably be moved to the Search component.

Comment 16

[Robby]

After having read the comments in this thread, all I can say is:
Please, for the love of god, just add this functionality in. PLEASE. Do not tell us and force us to install add-ons for something as simple as configuring a default custom search engine. I do not want or care to install an add-on that can potentially be a threat to my privacy or security in one way or another. Also, OpenSearch is not good enough (e.g. going to a website/search engine and then clicking the three dots and add the search engine that way), as it does not allow us, the users, to customize the URL parameters, which is an important part of this report. And finally there is the keyword search bookmark thing, I also do not want or care to have a keyword bookmark for this, even though it is probably the easiest work around for as long as we are getting stonewalled.

This report/request is especially today strengthened even further by the fact that I got an update for Firefox on Android to version 79.0.2 today, and to my surprise found an EASY AND SIMPLE WAY(!!!) in the settings to add a default custom search engine! Without the need for an add-on! You can actually add a default custom search engine with a custom search string of your choice, such as for example: https://www.google.be/search?q=%s&hl=en&gl=BE
Where the %s is replaced with whatever you want to search for. This allows one to customize the parameters in the URL. This is friggin' AWESOME! Why is this still not a thing in the desktop version of Firefox?? I was using Mycroft Project (https://mycroftproject.com/) to work around this issue but that hasn't worked anymore for some time now. So now I'm stuck with the default search engines that don't quite exactly work the way I want it to. This is frustrating. We keep getting stonewalled for no good reason, that much is clear after today's Android update which shows its perfectly possible to add this as stock functionality in a way that is easy for users to add default custom search engines.

Sorry for the rant, but after seeing this report being open for years with no good result and then today this happening, yeah, I can feel the pain that others in the comments above me are experiencing as well.

Comment 17

[Manuel Grießmayr]

Is there any workaround because this doesn't seem to work anymore:

• Take the template search XML file. Customize the XML file and replace & with & in
  the search URL.
• Encode a favicon - PNG is fine: https://data-url.de/
  Correct the image size values in the XML file if necessary.
• Enable the browser console by setting devtools.chrome.enabled on true in about:config. Launch it.
• Use the command Services.search.addEngine("file://[file path].xml", null, null, false);
  Open the XML file in the browser to get the path.

I get this error in the web console: "Services is undefined" :(

Comment 18

[Manuel Grießmayr]

The best way for now seems to be to install the addon "Add custom search engine" by Tom Schuster:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-custom-search-engine/
and after usage disable the addon.

Comment 19

[derwerbebriefkasten]

(In reply to Robby from comment #16)

This report/request is especially today strengthened even further by the fact that I got an update for Firefox on Android to version 79.0.2 today,
and to my surprise found an EASY AND SIMPLE WAY(!!!) in the settings to add a default custom search engine!

...and to my surprise I've found out that one can add a custom search engine BUT only if the server is listening to port 80 or 443 (as far as I've found out until today); since I have a search engine server in my own network not listening to port 80 / 443 I can't add my search engine on Android's Firefox anymore, what I am very sad about.

Comment 20

[Patrick Storz]

Yep, this is really ridiculous. Came here today, because I "only" want to change a single search parameter in the default Google search. For all I can see there simply is no possibility to achieve this.

In earlier versions of Firefox, I could at least copy the .xml file from the installation directory, adjust it to my liking, then copy it to the "searchplugins" folder in my profile directory. (Not at all user friendly, but at least it worked.)

In current versions of Firefox

1. There's no XML file anymore in the installation folder.
2. There's not even a proper XML file in the omni.ja, as it includes only placeholders for most of the strings.
3. Even if I end up with a valid XML file there's nowhere I can copy it to -search engines from the folder "searchplugins" are not loaded by Firefox anymore
4. The only way left is to manually edit "search.json.mozlz4" which is annoyingly complicated as
5. this file is compressed in "mozlz4" format, so I need an additional tool to extract it before being able to edit it, then I need to pack it again for Firefox to use it.
6. this file is in JSON format, so any XML file I might have is worthless.
7. The format of search.json is badly documented. I'm trying to find a reference right now but did not succeed yet (I certainly hope I don't have to look into the code).

In all reality I doubt there's more than a hand full of people willing (or even able) to jump through so many hoops, just to to something as trivial as modifying an existing search engine.

What is even worse: All of this was done to "protect" Firefox from Malware that adds questionable search engines AFAIU. Now
a.) Whoever wants to add a questionable search engine can still do that pretty easily (they just have to jump through some hoops, but that's it).
b.) Users are forced to install their search engines from the internet, trusting whomever created them blindly. (And users will do that, because it's been made close to impossible for humans to modify search engines)
Where did anything get more secure? Right!

Comment 21

[Manuel Grießmayr]

If you set the variable browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh to true in about:config then you will see an additional "Add" button add the bottom of about:preferences#search. This way you can add search engines but you won't be able to set icons unfortunately.

Comment 22

[Patrick Storz]

Nice, that's a good start. It misses a few fields (personally I was attempting to add search suggestions to a customized Google search for example) but I guess those could be added easily.

Allowing to edit existing search engines or at least use them as a template would mostly complete this functionality.

Why is this functionality hidden away behind an obscure preference, instead of making it available to users?

Comment 23

[Manuel Grießmayr]

(In reply to Patrick Storz from comment #22)

Why is this functionality hidden away behind an obscure preference, instead of making it available to users?

Because of incomplete functionality I guess. Someone should write a patch so that at least icons can be chosen.

Comment 24

[Andrei Dobrea]

Please make it possible to manage search engines this way, as I sometimes I receive errors when trying to add the engine via OpenSearch. It simply opens a dialog stating that (where somecorporation is a fictitious name):

Firefox could not install the search engine from: https://somecorporation.atlassian.net/wiki/opensearch/osd.action

No other explanations offered, the file is accessible only for logged in users, so dumping it here for any debug purposes:

<OpenSearchDescription>
<ShortName>somecorporation Confluence</ShortName>
<Description>Atlassian Confluence Search Provider</Description>
<Image height="16" width="16" type="image/x-icon">
https://somecorporation.atlassian.net/wiki/images/logo/confluence_48_white.png
</Image>
<Image height="64" width="64" type="image/png">
https://somecorporation.atlassian.net/wiki/images/logo/confluence_128_white.png
</Image>
<Url type="text/html" template="https://somecorporation.atlassian.net/wiki/search?text={searchTerms}"/>
<Query role="example" searchTerms="Confluence"/>
<InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>
<moz:SearchForm>
https://somecorporation.atlassian.net/wiki/searchsite.action
</moz:SearchForm>
</OpenSearchDescription>

The referenced PNG files are also available, so I have no explanation for why it might fail :(

Comment 25

[WfJjrdAr]

This is all the more a necessary function, given that there is no synchronization of search engines between the desktop and mobile client (only "Bookmarks", "History", "Open tabs", "Logins and passwords", "Credit cards", "Add-ons", and "Options"), and manually adding a search engine in an Android application requires entering the following data:

Add search engine

• Name
• Search string to use

Replace query with "%s". Example: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s
Learn more

I am ready to manually add all search engines, but from the PC app interface I cannot get the required data.

Comment 26

[heaven-seven]

Have enjoyed the search engine un-editability issue too. Discovered that StartPagers fail to provide search result when using Search box near the address bar. They instead overbullshitting with captcha, whining about "too much robotic requests", etc. At the same time search through their website works fine.

This is definitely not a problem since the only need is to update the StartPage search engine URL and/or parameters. So i click their "Add to firefox" link. But instead of simple adding the new search engine URL and/or setting new values of it's parameters it brings me onto the extension installation page. I install the extension, and FF started to bullshit me with it's version incompatibility. It commonly happens, that the only compatibility issue is version requirement, when APIs match and the "incompatible" extension turns out to be fully-functional after forced installing. So i corrected the minimum version in extension's 'manifest.json' and FF failed to install it because of it's signature mismatch...

Yes, a GUI for manual editing search engine configuration - URL, parameters, icon, name, description, etc. must be available in Options/Search. Yes, as people say, many browsers provide such capability for years and years. This enables user to correct search engine manually in a couple of clicks/key presses, eliminating the need to fall into and experience the FF extension-versioning-and-signature-hell. This also enables user to add desired search engine independently of the engine provider's degree of incompetence and ineptitude.

In general, it's a totally foolish concept: to prohibit basic operations for end user, allowing only digitally-signed third parties interventions. Not to mention, this concept breaks the Mozilla Principles system, which FF pretends to fulfill. Yes, there are enough fools for our age. But please remember the Shaw's Principle: Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. ;)

Comment 27

[cachius]

This would be so useful for querying APIs without dedicated search interface.
I need this for openalex.org. It is a project that continues to use Microsoft Academic data.
Right now it has no dedicated Search UI for authors. You have to search via URL directly.
E.g. https://api.openalex.org/authors?search=charles+darwin
Plays nice together with the native JSON rendering!

So I wanted to to add shortcut oaa for https://api.openalex.org/authors?search=%s and found no option in the settings. :-/
Eventually I managed with the help of superuser.com, but it was more friction than anticipated.

I propose to set
browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh = true
as hotfix asap which would ameliorate the discoverability greatly.

Comment 28

[cachius]

I mean to create and ship the "browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh = true" setting by default in Firefox. Easy way to catch up with Chromium based browsers.
Though at least custom entries made this way should be editable with the same UI.

Comment 29

[Tim Perry]

Just as an interesting tidbit: this feature request is the 4th most upvoted Firefox question on superuser.com ever (see https://superuser.com/questions/tagged/firefox?tab=Votes).

And the fix from here is flipping a config setting (just set browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh = true by default). I understand that change is nominally incomplete (you can't set a search engine icon - just the other essential fields) but I really don't think it's worth blocking clearly very necessary functionality, that has been implemented and shipped and perfectly usable for many years, just to wait for that addition. A generic icon for custom search engines is fine. Flipping this setting would be an excellent easy win!