Firefox Community Forum

As a loyal and long time user of Firefox [since 1998 yes 1998 ,,,] if you or i cant remove google from my browser , i might have to find a replacement, that will allow me to remove this nonsense , i await your response ATB BlackSam

Before the last update I could enter a search term into the search field, and it opened immediately a box offering the different search engines that I have installed. Just one click on one of them and my search got started (or simply <return> for using the default engine) But now I enter a search term but my search engines are not offered anymore. I have to click the symbol of the current engine to the left of the field and there chose the desired engine. But with this the earch doesn't start yet. It's still necessary to click the "Go"-arrow or press return.

So it got more complicated.

Is there a way to get the old method back?

Thanky you in advance

I set up firefox using my customised user.js, and I have been able to configure everything just as I want except for "Search Shortcuts".

Are there Firefox "preferences" (in the about:config "preferences" database) for the 10 or so "alternative search engine" entries (shown in about:preferences#search)? If not, is there any programmatic way that I can edit these "alternative search engine" entries so that I don't have to manually disable and/or remove them every time I install Firefox on a new machine?

TIA.

I'm struggling to disable this behavior of firefox. When I type "something: text", it's opening a pop-up asking "Open link with System Handler?".

I would rather just search the internet for "something: text".

How can I do that?

I've tried to play with parameters like network.protocol-handler.expose.something network.protocol-handler.app.something network.protocol-handler.external.something network.protocol-handler.warn-external.something

but didn't manage to do it

I was just wondering on m mozilla account it ask for my fire fox url an api's and wonted to know how to find out what fire fox search engines api and url code an address is to set up fox as my search engines on my mozilla account

Hello,

I want to use Startpage.com as my search engine in Firefox for Linux Mint. How do I do that?

Best regards,

Otto-Jörg

I wanted to set keywords for search engines (in order to quickly change them for a single query). This cannot be done for search engines by default (why?), so I had to delete them and create a new one with the same link and my own keywords. But now I can't give them the same name back, firefox says that such a search engine already exists. In general, it doesn't matter to me which letter is there. The main purpose of my appeal is to draw attention to the fact that search engines cannot be edited by default, because it is quite inconvenient. Thanks for the answer (I apologize in advance if I made a grammatical mistake somewhere, I used a translator) My OS: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS; firefox version: 145.0.2 (64-bit)

Recently, when I copy and paste an error message to the search box in Firefox and the first word contains a ':', such as when searching for this error message - "MESA-LOADER: failed to open dri: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gbm/dri_gbm.so: cannot open shared object file" - I get the "Open the mesa-loader link with System Handler?" prompt (see screenshot).

I used to be able to copy and paste such an error before into the search box and it would just work but now the browser defaults to thinking you are entering a URL. This could be because when I start typing in the search box, it immediately relocates what I'm typing to the address bar. Maybe this is the behaviour I need to disable? But how and why is it the default?

Help!

Browser details

$ > snap info firefox name: firefox summary: Mozilla Firefox web browser publisher: Mozilla✓ store-url: https://snapcraft.io/firefox contact: https://support.mozilla.org/kb/file-bug-report-or-feature-request-mozilla license: unset description: |

 Firefox is a powerful, extensible web browser with support for modern web application
 technologies.

commands:

 - firefox
 - firefox.geckodriver

snap-id: 3wdHCAVyZEmYsCMFDE9qt92UV8rC8Wdk tracking: latest/stable/ubuntu-24.04 refresh-date: 19 days ago, at 13:56 AEDT channels:

 latest/stable:    144.0.2-1    2025-10-29 (7177) 261MB -
 latest/candidate: 145.0-1      2025-11-04 (7242) 262MB -
 latest/beta:      145.0b9-1    2025-10-31 (7213) 262MB -
 latest/edge:      146.0a1      2025-11-05 (7250) 298MB -
 esr/stable:       140.4.0esr-2 2025-10-14 (7023) 258MB -
 esr/candidate:    140.5.0esr-1 2025-11-05 (7236) 258MB -
 esr/beta:         ↑                                    
 esr/edge:         ↑                                    

installed: 144.0-2 (7084) 261MB -

OS Details

PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS" NAME="Ubuntu" VERSION_ID="24.04" VERSION="24.04.3 LTS (Noble Numbat)" VERSION_CODENAME=noble ID=ubuntu ID_LIKE=debian HOME_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/" SUPPORT_URL="https://help.ubuntu.com/" BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/" PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy" UBUNTU_CODENAME=noble LOGO=ubuntu-logo

Hi, I can't seem to find an extension for this.

I have several custom search engines that I can use via shortcuts on the search bar, but I'm looking for a way to select text on a website, click the right button on it and select one of those engines in order to search that text.

I think Firefox was able to do it, but I'm only finding extensions that don't use FF's custom engines, I have to add the engines to the extension itself, manually, all over again, and that's a pain to keep synced.

Am I missing something here? Thank you.

I have the latest Firefox installed on Linux Mint. But in Firefox privacy settings there is no longer a way to choose browsers. It just says "Firefox is currently your default browser". But every time I do a search, it automatically search with Google. That never never happened until I installed latest Firefox. If Firefox is forcing me to use Google, that why do I need Firefox?? Please explain?

Thanks much for your time

I actively use keywords to search from the address bar, mainly g for google, gs for google scholar and w for wikipedia. Until a recent update (until last week, I think), pressing ctrl + L to go to the address bar would select all the text in the address bar, including the keyword, such that if I had made a google search by typing g and some query, I could immediately do a wikipedia search by typing w and some query.

Now, with an updated firefox (141.0.3, on xubuntu 24.04), the search engine from the previous search remains when I press ctrl + L, so I have to type backspace(s) to remove the search engine keyword, before typing a new keyword.

Is it possible to get the old behaviour back?

Hello,

I can't figure out how to add a custom search shortcut, is this no longer possible in Firefox (without installing addons/extensions)?

I recall 'custom search' being more or less ubiquitous, and feel like there was an "Add" button below the Search Shortcuts UI not that long ago.

Bookmarks with keywords would be a reasonable workaround if it weren't for having to prefix the keyword to the search terms.

Thank you, Kyle