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I want to know where the search engines are located and change the name of a search engine

  • 3 replies
  • 15 have this problem
  • 42 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

highwaystar
highwaystar
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Hello everyone,

here's my question. I use Firefox for a very very long time (the 1st I had was Firefox 2). I use to customize search engines (for example change "searching videos with Youtube" to "Youtube" (I know it's a little detail but that's the way I am). To customize or add search engines, there was a searchplugins folder, with xml files I could edit.

Now it doesn't work anymore. I couldn't find on the different forums the answer to my question. Some talk about a search.sqlite file, but I can't find it.

So please could you tell me where the searchengines are now located on the firefox installation, on a windows computer and on a linux distribution.

Thanks a lot in advance. If you can give me this information that would be awesome !

CD

Hello everyone, here's my question. I use Firefox for a very very long time (the 1st I had was Firefox 2). I use to customize search engines (for example change "searching videos with Youtube" to "Youtube" (I know it's a little detail but that's the way I am). To customize or add search engines, there was a searchplugins folder, with xml files I could edit. Now it doesn't work anymore. I couldn't find on the different forums the answer to my question. Some talk about a search.sqlite file, but I can't find it. So please could you tell me where the searchengines are now located on the firefox installation, on a windows computer and on a linux distribution. Thanks a lot in advance. If you can give me this information that would be awesome ! CD

Chosen solution

The default search engines have been in the omni.ja file with the program files since Firefox 34.0.5. They are "protected" and if you edit any of them, the next Firefox update will replace the edited ones.

The searchplugins folder was used for add-on search engines from Firefox 34 thru 44; as of Firefox 45 the add-on search engines were 'moved' to a new search.json file in the Profile folder. You can probably edit that file in a text program, but it is difficult to read the JSON files in comparison to the former search.xml files that were used. No where as easy to edit as it used to be.

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the-edmeister
the-edmeister
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Chosen Solution

The default search engines have been in the omni.ja file with the program files since Firefox 34.0.5. They are "protected" and if you edit any of them, the next Firefox update will replace the edited ones.

The searchplugins folder was used for add-on search engines from Firefox 34 thru 44; as of Firefox 45 the add-on search engines were 'moved' to a new search.json file in the Profile folder. You can probably edit that file in a text program, but it is difficult to read the JSON files in comparison to the former search.xml files that were used. No where as easy to edit as it used to be.

highwaystar
highwaystar Question owner
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Thanks a lot the-edmeister for your very precise answer. I have all the information I needed. Great ! Thanks again !

cor-el
cor-el
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  • Top 10 Contributor
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Note that current Firefox releases use a single compressed search.json.mozlz4 file in the profile folder to store search engine data including keywords.