Firefox add the Freebsd Forums as a search engine

You can add the Freebsd Forums as custom search engine with Firefox


1 - open about:config in the Firefox address bar

Code:
about:config

enter the following text

Code:
browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh

and set it to true if it isnt already set

2 - open the Firefox setting, search

Code:
about:preferences#search

click the Add button under Search Shortcuts

and fill in the following sections

Search Engine Name:

Freebsd Forums

Engine URL, use %s in place of the search term:

Code:
https://forums.freebsd.org/search?q=%s

Alias

Code:
@freebsd

3 - Open the Address Bar

type

Code:
@freebsd
and then press tab

enter you query

that takes you to the search query page press enter
and it will return the results on the Freebsd forum

You can also create search queries that open the different tabs in the Google Search results

Google Web

Search Engine Name:

Google Web

Engine URL, use %s in place of the search term

Code:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14

Alias

Code:
@web

Google Images

Search Engine Name

Google Images

Engine URL, use %s in place of the search term

Code:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=2

Alias

Code:
@images

Google Video

Search Engine Name

Google Video

Engine URL, use %s in place of the search term

Code:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=7

Alias

Code:
@video

Google Forums

Google search seems to have a new section called forums
you used to get the reddit results in the main section but it looks like they have been moved into the forum tab

Search Engine Name

Google Forums

Engine URL, use %s in place of the search term

Code:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=18

Alias

Code:
@forums

Screen shots

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Nice, Thank you.
forums.freebsd.org/search/426937/?q=%s&o=date
Do you know what the number refer to? is it a unique ID for each user?
I ask because if I make a research directly from the forum the number is different.
 
Nice, Thank you.


Do you know what the number refer to? is it a unique ID for each user?
I ask because if I make a research directly from the forum the number is different.
Hi Mate

It look lilke the number may be your user id on the forum
i tried in incognito mode not logged in and it didnt work

If you do a search on the forum and then make a note of the number in the search query
and then use that number in the custom search it should work

the mods will probably know what the number is
my guess is your right and its the user id

sorry for any confusion

logged in search

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Incognito mode in the browser not logged in

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if you remove the number from the search query
it returns this page

20250131_19h25m45s_grim.png
 
Hi Mate

It look lilke the number may be your user id on the forum
i tried in incognito mode not logged in and it didnt work

If you do a search on the forum and then make a note of the number in the search query
and then use that number in the custom search it should work

the mods will probably know what the number is
my guess is your right and its the user id

sorry for any confusion

It's fine no problem. I was just thinking if someone abuse it then you should probably remove you ID from the tutorial, but in any case I don't think it changes anything for you, I guess.
Thank you for the tuts as usual ;)
 
no problem mate

looking at the url the number changes when you search for different things
so it doesnt look like its the user id but maybe a number related to the search term

if you use this url

Code:
https://forums.freebsd.org/search?q=%s

it takes you to the search page and then you can press enter
so look like one extra key press is needed
 
screenshot of the Firefox settings with new query string
without the number

if you add the number it will return results for bhyve

moral of the story is to test things like this with more than one search term

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Another thing to mention

After you have added a custom search engine to Firefox
you can edit the keyword, but not the actual url

So if you want to change the url you have to remove the search engine and re add it

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