1921502 - Firefox for Android: use mobile Wikipedia for alternative search engine

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Firefox for Android :: Search, enhancement)

Description

[Andrei Rybak]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Go to three-dot menu > ⚙️ Settings > Search > Manage alternative search engines
2. Ensure checkbox next to "Wikipedia" is enabled
3. Go back to the home screen
4. Type a search query in the address bar. E.g. "example123"
5. Tap the search engine selector on the left side
6. Tap "Wikipedia"
7. Tap the "go" button (the highlighted button of the keyboard)
8. Observe the resulting URL

Actual results:

The search URL points to desktop version of the Wikipedia website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=example123&sourceid=Mozilla-search&ns0=1

Expected results:

Mobile version of Wikipedia is used: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=example123&sourceid=Mozilla-search&ns0=1

Comment 1

[Andrei Rybak]

Workaround

1. Go to three-dot menu > ⚙️ Settings > Search > Manage alternative search engines
2. Tap "+ Add search engine"
3. Enter:
   • Name: "Mobile Wikipedia"
   • Search string URL: "https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/%s"

Comment 2

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

(In reply to Andrei Rybak from comment #0)

Actual results:

The search URL points to desktop version of the Wikipedia website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=example123&sourceid=Mozilla-search&ns0=1

Expected results:

Mobile version of Wikipedia is used: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=example123&sourceid=Mozilla-search&ns0=1

When I try this on my Android instances, Wikipedia redirects me to the mobile page automatically. It does the same if I visit the first of your two links here.

Is it possible that you've got the "Desktop site" option turned on for Wikipedia?

Comment 3

[Andrei Rybak]

Hmm. After some testing, my educated guess is that it has to do not with the "Desktop site" option, but with Wikipedia cookies – the search seems to redirect to the version of the website used last.

I.e. steps to reproduce for Firefox for Android:

1. Open https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example (mobile version)
2. Try searching on Wikipedia
3. Result: search results are loaded in the mobile Wikipedia
4. Open https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example (desktop version)
5. Try searching on Wikipedia
6. Result: search results are loaded in the desktop Wikipedia

I'm not sure if this is desirable or not, but at least I know what to do to "reset" it to the mobile version for search results.

The search URL from the workaround doesn't have such behavior, always opening the mobile version for search results.