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