Linux

What? Settings: search for search. Change default. Click find more search engines. It offers hundreds of them.

This was not hard, nor obfuscated.

What are you talking about?

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-or-remove-search-engine-firefox#w_add-a-search-engine-from-the-address-bar

That took me like two second to find. You can also use addons, like this one for Qwant:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/qwantcom-for-firefox/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search

Which I like. But none of this is hard or "obfuscated", and it's literally identical to changing or adding a new search engine on Waterfox.

I have a lot of issues with Mozilla, not least of which is their reliance on Google for income. It's like hiring a dingo as a babysitter. But c'mon, man.

I am confused by this post, there are 4 ways to add search engines to Firefox:

1. From the settings page via "add search engine" button, to pick on from the Firefox add-ons site. This is the "main" route for most users as it ensures you're adding links from a trusted source (so you won't add a fake version of a popular search engine by accident that scrapes your data).

2. Via the address bar. Any website that supports OpenSearch can be added by right clicking the address bar and selecting "add search engine name".

3. Via the Mycroft project website, where almost any search engine in the directory can be added to Firefox.

4. Via bookmarks and keywords. This is slightly more involved but almost any engine can be added this way.

Android Firefox offers slightly different routes but again any search engine can be added. It is a bit more involved though.

Firefox includes certain search engines by default as it gets revenue from the search engine providers for doing so, and Mozilla is transparent about this. Although Mozilla is independent, the Google search engine deal remains one of its biggest sources of income. That's how it survives.

The default add-ons site meanwhile is a compromise between security and convenience for the majority of users, but people are not locked in to it and other search providers are not locked out of it.

The Mullvad browser is modified Firefox btw, as is the Tor Browser it is itself based off. I don't know how much either contribute to the Mozilla foundation. Tor is an open source project but Mullvad is a commercial enterprise.

The number of downvotes is bullshit, so you get an upvote from me. People tend to exhibit tribalism when it comes to browsers and distros; don't ask me why.

I am a Firefox fanboy and long-time user, and I agree with OP that shit like Google and Amazon needs to not be in Firefox. But alas, these kinds of partnerships (esp with Google) are Mozilla's primary source of funding, so I take it as a necessary evil.

Every browser and company that makes the browser is guilty of some horse fuckery (with Brave for example, their BAT shit). You have to just adjust the browser settings to your liking and get on with life, not dwelling on its flaws.

So just configure Firefox, make sure to install uBlock, read the Arkenfox GitHub page and harden Firefox accordingly, and enjoy using a pretty awesome browser. Do not use a fork (eg Librewolf) because they lag behind Firefox for security updates, with the exception of Mullvad, which is ok to use.

Happy browsing and welcome to the Firefox community!

Sincerely, A Sane User

Not sure why you get downvoted so heavily, I have also found that adding a custom search engine is unnecessary hard in Firefox these days.

There is a way to get the “add” button back in the settings described here: https://superuser.com/a/1756774

Generally speaking, I’ve noticed that, for inexperienced users and beginners, the settings pages/windows/tabs for many web browsers aren’t very… friendly. They’re designed mostly for advanced users and users who are already accustomed to their design/layout.

The one exception to this would be Safari, which is designed to be far more accessible, but most advanced users dislike using it for this reason (and a few other novel UX decisions).

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-or-remove-search-engine-firefox

But I also agree that they really need better defaults in that list, while adding more isn't complex, most people are going to either use the default, or just pick from the dropdown of defaults which are bad.

@squid True...Harder now to add a custom search engine unless you visit it and then click the url on top to get a dropdown to add it...but manually adding it is hard.

Speaking of search engines I highly recommend searx.neocities.org/ - it randomly uses the best Searx instances. No ads, no tracking...

User error

Go to the site, right click on the url bar and at the bottom there's the option.

Any site that implements open search can be added.

I turned the behavior of "try to resolve and if it doesn't work, feed it to a search engine" off, because I don't want my slightly-mistyped URLs to go to a search engine, and I want to have easy access to multiple search engines.

Instead, I just add a keyworded bookmark for each search engine that I want to be able to use. Right-click on search field, choose "Add a keyword for this search...". Firefox lets you set a keyword for the bookmark.

It'll replace "%s" in the bookmarked URL with whatever your search query was. If your keyword is "gn" and you have it set up to search Google News, then "gn brushfires australia" will search for brushfires in Australia.

On Desktop you need "add custom search engine" an addon that creates custom engines for you. Otherwise you can only add OpenSearch ones, the ones that show up when right clicking the URL bar of a website.

Out of curiosity, why did you say that duckduckgo was particularly awful?