Firefox: How to add a search engine manually

#firefox  #search  #perplexity 

Mostly you can add to your list of search engines just right-clicking. Why bother? Well, maybe you have a niche default search preference, but also it's extraordinarily handy for setting up shortcuts IMHO.

Example: add YouTube to Firefox as a search engine

  • Go to YouTube
  • Right-click the URL
/how-to/firefox/youtube-rightclick-search.png
Right-click menu on YouTube URL in Firefox
  • Now you'll find YouTube in Firefox settings:
/how-to/firefox/ff-search-settings-youtube.png
YouTube search engine in Firefox Search settings

If you give it keyworkd y for example, now when you type y laika party in the search bar, you'll get the YouTube search results for "laika party".

May she live evermore in that great party in the sky

The song is a tribute to Laika, the Soviet dog who in 1957 became the first living being to orbit the Earth. The idea for the lyrics came after Emmy accidentally discovered her tragic story, prompting her to imagine an alternative fate in which the animal, instead of dying, experiences an endless party in space.

Laika Party is Ireland’s 2025 entry for the Eurovision Song Contest.

But maybe you wnat to add some other site that doesn't have this integration. Or, ahem, Amazon which teases us with the right-click menu but has been broken for as long as I can remember …

/how-to/firefox/amazon-right-click.png
Right-click menu on Amazon URL in Firefox
/how-to/firefox/amazon-right-click-error.png
Error message adding Amazon as a search engine
  • Go to about:config
  • Add boolean true to browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh
  • Now in Settings/Search there is an Add button that wasn't there before:
/how-to/firefox/ff-search-settings-add-button.png
Firefox Search settings now with an 'Add' button
  • Now you can manually add a search engine using the syntax1:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=%s

where %s is the search term

/how-to/firefox/ff-settings-manual-add-search-dialog.png
Dialog for manually adding a search engine
1

This example uses amazon.co.uk but works equally if you replace it with amazon.com, amazon.com.br etc.