# Firefox now requires extensions to add new search providers?



## Deleted member 66267 (Mar 18, 2021)

I wanted to add Ekoru and Ecosia search engine and it seemed I can only do so via extensions. If the extensions were disabled, the search engines also gone and it fall back to Google. Pale Moon still offers the same old experience with old Firefox, though. They have a list of search providers and just click on the search provider you need to add it. Do not require any extensions and the search engines will not gone if the extensions were disabled.

BTW, do you know if Ekoru and Ecosia reliable?


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## bsduck (Mar 18, 2021)

You don't need an extension to add a search provider: once you are on its webpage, open the menu with three dots in the right edge of the address bar and you will find an "add search engine" entry.

If I restart Firefox with disabled add-ons, my custom search engines (including default) are still there and working. The only difference I notice is that Amazon is present, although I removed it from the list and it does not show up with add-ons enabled.


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## Snurg (Mar 18, 2021)

Does the button "Change search settings" no longer appear when you click the magnifier icon in the search box?

BTW Ecosia uses Bing as search provider afaiu.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Mar 18, 2021)

The power connector came loose from th back of my laptop earlier today and when it the battery ran out it powered down, obviously.

However, this is the second time it's happened recently while moving it and both times when I started www/firefox-esr it had reset itself completely with the exception of removing the extensions. 

And some of them needed to be set again. uBlock Origin had none of the filters in place I had been using, NoScript only had the sites in it I had marked Trusted, etc.

I don't think you can change search engines like you used to be able to do. I always used dictionary.com as mine and as an extension now it is only available through the right-click menu.


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## Deleted member 66267 (Mar 19, 2021)

bsduck said:


> You don't need an extension to add a search provider: once you are on its webpage, open the menu with three dots in the right edge of the address bar and you will find an "add search engine" entry.
> 
> If I restart Firefox with disabled add-ons, my custom search engines (including default) are still there and working. The only difference I notice is that Amazon is present, although I removed it from the list and it does not show up with add-ons enabled.


Firefox no longer make it easy like in the past. I confirm I could still add Ecosia using the site's provided xml file but I can't do the same with Ekoru. I check it for a while then I realize now I need an extension just to add a new search engine to Firefox. On modern Firefox, when you clicked on Find more search engines, it will redirect you to their addons site: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/extensions/category/search-tools/

Pale Moon on the other hand only provide you a list of search engines and you choose what you need without using any extensions: https://addons.palemoon.org/search-plugins/


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## Deleted member 66267 (Mar 19, 2021)

Snurg said:


> Does the button "Change search settings" no longer appear when you click the magnifier icon in the search box?
> 
> BTW Ecosia uses Bing as search provider afaiu.


What's wrong with Bing? Both Ekoru and Ecosia make use of Bing. Bing knows they can't compete with Google so they being partner with green services like Ekoru and Ecosia to gain more market share. Green search is also the reason why I choose these services.


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## Deleted member 66267 (Mar 19, 2021)

Trihexagonal said:


> I don't think you can change search engines like you used to be able to do. I always used dictionary.com as mine and as an extension now it is only available through the right-click menu.


Too bad it seems to be the case. We are in the era that everything needs to be done via extensions!


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## bsduck (Mar 19, 2021)

Adding Ekoru doesn't work here either, indeed. However the problem is probably on Ekoru's side, not Firefox. It is the first time I see it failing to add a search provider. Adding Startpage, Wiktionary, Yandex, Yahoo, FreeBSD man pages, etc. works fine as it always did for me.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Mar 20, 2021)

failure said:


> Too bad it seems to be the case. We are in the era that everything needs to be done via extensions!



I think disabling JS globally and selectively allowing only the script needed for functionality is the most important thing you can do as a security measure while skateboarding the web and NoScript the extension I want to be able to use.

Some sites have a long list of scripts that would like to run and I've heard people say it's too much trouble to do that for every site. I can look at a list and tell by the name which ones are needed and they are usually far less than those listed..

From their site:


> NoScript's unique *whitelist based pre-emptive script blocking* approach prevents exploitation of *security vulnerabilities* (known, such as *Meltdown* or *Spectre*, and *even not known yet*!) with no loss of functionality...



Need I say More?

How about Drive-by downloads? I know where your Windows box will download the Malware payload as soon as you land on the site unless you have that script disabled. You don't need to do anything on your part for it to happen and probably won't even notice till it's at work.

But  I wouldn't send you there to find out the hard way. I could dig up posts where people talked about it happening to them. Didn't worry me one bit or keep me from going there every day. Now all it's good for is the drive-by and not what it used to be.

I've used Firefox since it was released and don't like what it's become but will use it till it no longer supports the extensions I want. Then it is worthless to me as a browse and time to start looking for one of worth. When that is no longer possible I'll use more "primitive" measures like www/w3m-img. Or go mid-evil on them and send a spider on it's way to bring the site to me.

I have very few sites now that warrant bookmarking by frequency of visit by choice. There would be even less of import when Security tops the list of importance while I edit the list and balance the scales. This is one of the few I would visit with JS given a will of it's own that exceeds my Permissions because it cannot superseded my will as Taskmaster in the task assigned as my hire. Or "you're fired".



failure said:


> Pale Moon on the other hand only provide you a list of search engines and you choose what you need without using any extensions: https://addons.palemoon.org/search-plugins/



I choose not to do what I think is needed only because I was asked not to.

That was decision of the person who took the abuse of a Mouthy Moonie that turned the debate brought to them into a poorly scripted tag team match and called his partner Marybeth Moonie in for a turn in what became a handicap match.

A run-in from Parts Unknown by Agent of Chaos#1 was not of their approval and request to open bomb bay doors was denied. So I honor his requests,

I'm an Independent Entity and asking permission to do something not something I do often so I want to keep my word.


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## mickey (Mar 20, 2021)

To my knowledge firefox uses XML following the OpenSearch description format for search engine providers and there is a number of ways how to install such search engine descriptions, including but not limited to: clicking a link on a webpage offering such search engine, embedding the XML data within enterprise policies (firefox-esr) and some others. So if you really want to, you can write your own XML description and feed it into firefox. This of course requires detailed knowledge of the possible query parameters, query method (POST/GET) and other more technical stuff, but OTOH this way you can make sure that no unnecessary data gets transmitted to the search engine provider with each query you make.


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## Snurg (Mar 20, 2021)

failure said:


> What's wrong with Bing? Both Ekoru and Ecosia make use of Bing.


Nothing wrong.
You asked about its reliabilty, and thus I answered, as it will probably as reliable as Bing, so you can estimate yourself.



failure said:


> Bing knows they can't compete with Google so they being partner with green services like Ekoru and Ecosia to gain more market share. Green search is also the reason why I choose these services.


Yes, and the "Green" factor is it that made me want to add Ekoru (which this thread made me aware of - thank you!).



mickey said:


> To my knowledge firefox uses XML following the OpenSearch description format for search engine providers and there is a number of ways how to install such search engine descriptions, [ ... ]
> So if you really want to, you can write your own XML description and feed it into firefox. This of course requires detailed knowledge of the possible query parameters, query method (POST/GET) and other more technical stuff, but OTOH this way you can make sure that no unnecessary data gets transmitted to the search engine provider with each query you make.



I tried this yesterday late before going to bed. On this page there are some explanations, and the mention of this "Mycroft Project" was absolutely awesome. Probably didn't find the correct way to add this in (incorrect dir, etc). But I cannot rule out that it is no longer possible to do it that way.
The Mycroft script generator produced this, I show it only as illustration:

```
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/"
                       xmlns:moz="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/">
  <!-- Created on Fri, 19 Mar 2021 23:49:33 GMT -->
  <ShortName>ekoru</ShortName>
  <Description>ekoru search engine</Description>
  <Url type="text/html" method="get" template="https://www.ekoru.org/"/>
  <!-- <Image width="16" height="16">GENERATEDLATER</Image> -->
  <Developer>Anon</Developer>
  <InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>
  <moz:SearchForm></moz:SearchForm>
  <!-- <Url type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" rel="self" template="GENERATEDLATER"/> -->
</OpenSearchDescription>
```

Again, no idea whether this still works, as I only did a quick try without much researching/trying.


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## mickey (Mar 20, 2021)

Snurg said:


> On this page there are some explanations, and the mention of this "Mycroft Project" was absolutely awesome.


I found it rather hard to get anything really useful out of this mycroft project page, as there are just too many entries for the same search engine provider without any clear indication what the differences between the various entries are.

What (kind of) worked for me to configure search engines in firefox-esr is to use policies. This did not work quite the way I expected it to work, but you can embed the XML data directly within the policies.


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