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How can I add a custom search engine?

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  • 2 have this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by rsbrux

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There used to be an article describing how to add a custom search engine to Firefox by using a URL derived by doing a test search on the desired page. I had previously created an entry for Google Switzerland (google.ch) in this way. A few months ago, this entry mysteriously disappeared from my Firefox search engine list. Now I can no longer find the article on how to create a custom search engine entry based on a test search. Some posts on this subject refer to the Mycroft Project add-ins (http://mycroftproject.com/search-engines.html). However, there are 15 plug-ins listed for google.ch, 3 alone for vanilla search in German. I would far prefer to roll my own using the test search method. Is this still possible? If so, how? If not, how can I "roll my own" search engine entry?

There used to be an article describing how to add a custom search engine to Firefox by using a URL derived by doing a test search on the desired page. I had previously created an entry for Google Switzerland (google.ch) in this way. A few months ago, this entry mysteriously disappeared from my Firefox search engine list. Now I can no longer find the article on how to create a custom search engine entry based on a test search. Some posts on this subject refer to the Mycroft Project add-ins (http://mycroftproject.com/search-engines.html). However, there are 15 plug-ins listed for google.ch, 3 alone for vanilla search in German. I would far prefer to roll my own using the test search method. Is this still possible? If so, how? If not, how can I "roll my own" search engine entry?

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hi, you could also use a tool like http://ready.to/search/en/ to create your own search engine...

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@philipp, thx for the tip! To save time, I settled for "Google CH SSL de-CH (google.ch) by Anon" from Mycroft project. I will play around with Ready2Search when I have more time. It was already helpful to find out from the author's guide (http://ready.to/search/make/en_make_plugin.htm) where the search plugins are stored (XML files in the "searchplugins" subdirectory of the Firefox profile). Ready2Search seems to use the same approach used by the earlier way of creating FF search engine entries, and could obviously help some of those who have complained about not getting a useful icon from the default method of adding a search page to FF.