Could someone help me changing the default search string permanently for the default adress bar search in sf browser? (Like coderus’ app did on 3.x)
There has to be an entry somewhere
TIA
Just wait for the next release. 
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Coderus has enough to do. Can´t be so hard to change that if someone knows where it is
ApB was suggesting that if you read the localization strings of the upcoming 4.1.0 release, it seems that the possibility to choose search engines will be included in the next OS release.
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Thx for the great info. Still, it does not anwer my question. TIA if someone knows what file to edit.
Now that DuckDuckGo is no longer an option, this question is becoming relevant again.
How to change the default search engine in 4.x and which one would your recommend?
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What happened to ddg?
They want to become more like Google, e.g. start censoring information they don’t agree with.
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I saw this yesterday and immediately changed…I hope they get the message.
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I was not aware, thanks for sharing.
So, alternatives?
Qwant?
Startpage?
Regarding how to change the default search engine:
Just go on the search engine main page and into Settings, click on Search on, then install.
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I’ve heard a lot about brave in this context but it seems to be rather new so no idea how usable it may be.
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Thanks :–), gonna try.
Btw, has someone a link/article about the ddg politics change?
Sure it’s not a rumour?
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… and in case that doesn’t do what you want it to do, it’s relatively easy to make a custom search engine XML and add that.
Duplicate one of the default ones to a new file from /usr/lib/mozembedlite/chrome/embedlite/content, and edit it.
Put it in either that folder, or ~/.local/share/org.sailfishos/browser/searchEngines
Example for custom DDG settings:
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">
<ShortName>CustomDuckDuckGo</ShortName>
<Description>Search DuckDuckGo with custom parameters</Description>
<InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>
<LongName>Custom DuckDuckGo Search</LongName>
<Url type="text/html" method="get" template="https://duckduckgo.com/">
<Param name="kn" value="1"/>
<Param name="kae" value="r"/>
<Param name="kz" value="-1"/>
<Param name="kam" value="osm"/>
<Param name="kt" value="h"/>
<Param name="kl" value="h"/>
<Param name="q" value="{searchTerms}"/>
</Url>
<Url type="application/x-suggestions+json" template="https://ac.duckduckgo.com/ac/">
<Param name="q" value="{searchTerms}"/>
<Param name="type" value="list"/>
</Url>
</OpenSearchDescription>
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“Family Friendly”
So also censorship, just citing different moral grounds.
Technically worse than the DDG thing: DDG downranks some results while siwsscows refuses to index them at all.
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Why must it be so hard for these companies to simply leave their opinions/agenda out of search results is beyond me.
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Companies routinely do ‘virtue signaling’ as part of PR. But, it’s also a company, after all and who knows if shareholder pressures or public pressure is involved. Sounds more like a personal decision by the company founder?
Whoever writes the search algorithm decides what the search results will look like. Even though the developers may not realise it, these decisions are purely political. In this case, the CEO of DuckDuckGo openly discusses part of the politics behind their algorithm. Other search providers who show different or differently ranked results for the same query simply used different politics to create their algorithm.
All search providers ‘censor information they don’t agree with’. This is not always a bad thing. I wouldn’t want to have the top ten search results for “good financial investments” be clever scam sites, because the higher the result is ranked, the more trustworthy it appears. Is it right or just for search providers to censor scam sites to protect the easily fooled from falling for them? Or are they censoring those sites because they assume their users would not be interested in scams?
By the way, if you were serious about it: being located in the United States, DuckDuckGo was never an option in the first place.
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Exactly. Threat modelling: Choose the search enginge in regard of what you want to find. One can always switch to Yandex for russian sites, some are good for images, some for confidental stuff… No need to use just one.
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