Firefox ESR (vanilla Debian package) removed custom search engine

[canci]

This is the first time this happened on the vanilla Debian Firefox package:
Firefox just informed me that it has changed my default search engine. When clicking on "Learn more", a website informs me that:

From time to time, Mozilla may update the list of search engines that are available in Firefox or set as default in specific regions. If your default search engine is changed, you'll receive a notification in Firefox so you can further customize your default search settings.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/se ... =inproduct

So, they deleted the custom search engine I set up (a Searx server located in my country) and re-enabled Google as the default search engine! I'm not even sure how legal all of this is.

It's a sad state that the least evil of the more mainstream browsers, that uses its own rendering engine and is not reskinned Chromium with cryptomining, is resorting to this. Firefox is officially at the same level as Android, where someone has to strip it of the nasty invasive stuff in order for it to work like browsers used to 10 years ago. It's even more sad that this is in Debian Main and hardly anyone cares. I guess I'll change to Mulvad for the time being.

[trinidad]

It's an unneeded feature anyway. Just make your search engine of choice your home page and new tab page in the settings. Both DDG and STRTPG allow you to personalize settings with a URL.

TC

[Diesel330]

At least it notifies you... I haven't customize the search engines in my FF, I navigate to searx instances through this page: https://searx.space/

I have FF default years now so I didn't notice any change. They really do take bad decisions but there is really nothing else for alternative. I tested Mullvad with ''Cover Your Tracks'' and it performs bad

[Uptorn]

By managing your Firefox settings through a user.js template, you avoid having settings silently changed without your knowledge or consent.

I was thinking on this today, the state of browsers and how big the web standard has gotten, and there really is no optimal choice. If you use something like LibreWolf or Mullvad, you're at the mercy of those smaller teams to keep up with releases and to not throw in the towel one day. But if you go upstream right to Firefox, there is so much decluttering and sanitizing one has to do that it necessitates tools like Arkenfox or Betterfox, plus a plethora of extensions.

Corporate developers like those heading Google's chrome team know that if they develop standards rapidly enough, that smaller potential competitors will be driven out of the race simply because they do not have the man power to keep up. Yes, I believe this is being done with intention and is not simply an convenient accident for Google.

When a codebase is sufficiently large, forks simply aren't good enough. Part of the value that huge software projects hold is in the institutional knowledge held by their active developers. A team of one or three or a dozen indie devs just isn't going to be able to wrangle the likes of Firefox or Chromium into their own sustainable endeavor which cuts the umbilical from Google or Mozilla, or be able to build anything equivalent from scratch.

It's such a sad state of affairs that we must treat our web browser as an adversary to be overcome. Once Google succeeds in killing off extension manifest v2, of course Mozilla will follow along like an obedient lapdog and we will need to scramble to find solutions that work outside of the hobbled extension framework.

What's everybody's current "plan B"?

[LinuxOS]

There is an easy fix:
Open about:config, search for browser.search.update, set it to false and Firefox will never "update" (change) your search engines.

I am more concerned about Mozilla's pocket spyware, in about:config you can search for pocket, disable everything there and set all URLs to about:config.
Other concerning things to search for are studies , normandy, activity-stream.

Everything else can be covered by using arkenfox user.js.
https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js
Make sure to select a version for your Firefox release, 115 for example, and read through it, enabling and disabling things you want.
The defaults are almost good enough. They don't cover browser.search.update, pocket and activity-stream, you have to change that manually in about:config, or add your settings to user.js file.

[canci]

It's an unneeded feature anyway. Just make your search engine of choice your home page and new tab page in the settings. Both DDG and STRTPG allow you to personalize settings with a URL.

Thanks for chiming in, but sorry, I don't share your sentiment. I myself decide what is a needed feature and I don't appreciate a solution involving changing my habits when it's clearly not needed. If I did, I'd just use MacOS, right?
I want to search through the address bar, I don't use homepages or new tab pages, and I don't think it's a good choice to covertly or surprisingly enable the most egregious search engine when it comes to privacy. I understand that Mozilla has an ad contract with Google, but this is really low.

There is an easy fix [...] arkenfox user.js

Thanks, that might actually be the best option. I'm just pressed a bit for time, so I opted to use Librewolf for now. Mulvad seemed a bit too restricted with all of its safety features.

Since I prefer uncluttered interfaces anyway, I'll reduce my GUI browser usage altogether and focus on doing most of my reading via w3m. Most static text is displayed just fine there. Pity I haven't found decent text-only version for the Fediverse offerings yet.