Browsers based on Chromium will no longer allow users to delete default search engines

[John C.]

_________________________________________________________________________
Most web browsers ship with a bunch of different search engines that you
may switch to, if you are not a fan of the default option. In addition
to changing the provider, you may delete the default search engines from
the list. But it appears that Chromium based browsers no longer allow
you to do it.

This change does not affect the option to set your default engine, you
just won't be able to the preloaded providers. That's not necessarily a
bad thing per se.

Chromium-based browsers will not allow you to delete the default search
engines

A reddit user reported that Microsoft Edge has removed the ability to
remove default search engines from the settings. While it is true,
another user pointed out that it is not a change in Edge, but in all
Chromium-based browsers. Some users says that this only affects the
Windows version of the browsers, and that the Linux variants have the
option.

According to a commit on the open-source project's page, the proposal to
remove the delete button was made in October 2021. The developers felt
that deleting the search engines was too easy, and that it was a bad
thing because it would not be easy for users to add them back, as it is
not possible to set the search provider for suggestions, new tag page
and other specialized URLs. Following a small discussion which concluded
that deleting a search provider could cause more problems than it would
break, the change was approved a day later when Chromium 97 was released.
_________________________________________________________________________

This is a perfect example of why it's a really bad idea to base a
browser on Chromium. Google has control of the features and code.

'Nuff said.

--
John C. BS206. No ad, CD, commercial, cripple, demo, nag, pirated,
share, spy, time-limited, trial or web wares for me please. I filter out
posts made from Google Groups and cross-posted (sent to more than one
newsgroup at a time) messages. I recommend you do likewise.

[Mick Finnlay]

Given that Chromium is open source, I think this could well be an
example of FUD. Anyone who uses the Chromium source as a base and
creates their own browser on top of it can (CAN, not must!) adapt the
source code such that any engines are included or excluded. Whether
those who create such a browser are *willing* to do that is another
matter... some may have ulterior motives, for others it's perhaps a
question of the resources managing these changes will require. We'll
have to wait and see but I can't imagine that Vivaldi (to take just one
example) will slavishly follow this. IMO of course.

--
Mick

[VanguardLH]

I am using Edge-C under Windows 10 Home x64 21H2. When I go to
edge://settings/searchEngines, I can remove any search engine that is
listed there (I already removed the defaults, except for Bing but it's
not the default, and I added a whole bunch of search keywords of my
own). Just WHERE is the ability to configure search engines been
removed (from Edge-C which is a Chrome variant)? Variants choose which
code to include when cloning the source from the Chrome project.

Variants use the Blink rendering engines and Google's V8 Javascript
interpreter. The do NOT have to use the same chrome (small "c") as
Google's Chrome web browser. That's why I like Edge-C over Chrome,
because Edge-C has many options that are not available in Chrome while
not requiring as many extensions to compensate for the missing options
in Chrome. Edge-C can be configured to be more private and secure than
Chrome. As a consequence, I don't have Chrome installed, and use Edge-C
as my backup web browser. Firefox remains my primary web browser.

A "reddit user reported". Oh, one user, and no reference (URL) to the
professed Reddit entry. You (John) didn't even bother to give the URL
to the online article you cite here. Until you do, you're just spewing
FUD.

Did *YOU* actually check if Edge-C lost the ability of deleting search
engines from the list of those installed? How many Chrome variants did
you yourself test?

[Ralph Fox]

On Sun, 16 Jan 2022 14:50:00 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

> I am using Edge-C under Windows 10 Home x64 21H2. When I go to
> edge://settings/searchEngines, I can remove any search engine that is
> listed there (I already removed the defaults, except for Bing but it's
> not the default, and I added a whole bunch of search keywords of my
> own).

I have Edge version 97.0.1072.62 (Chromium-based).

When I go to edge://settings/searchEngines see a screen like this:

screen-shot (Edge): <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_edge(c)97.0.1072.62searchengines.png>

I can make any search engine the default, and I can edit the name
and keyword of any search engine, but *not* the search engine's URL.

Can you tell me how you remove search engines on this screen?

Also, can you tell me which version number of Edge-C you are using?
As I am sure you understand, this is reported to be a new change.
We might not expect anything but the newest version to have this change.

> Just WHERE is the ability to configure search engines been
> removed (from Edge-C which is a Chrome variant)? Variants choose which
> code to include when cloning the source from the Chrome project.
>
> Variants use the Blink rendering engines and Google's V8 Javascript
> interpreter. The do NOT have to use the same chrome (small "c") as
> Google's Chrome web browser. That's why I like Edge-C over Chrome,
> because Edge-C has many options that are not available in Chrome while
> not requiring as many extensions to compensate for the missing options
> in Chrome. Edge-C can be configured to be more private and secure than
> Chrome. As a consequence, I don't have Chrome installed, and use Edge-C
> as my backup web browser. Firefox remains my primary web browser.
>
> A "reddit user reported". Oh, one user, and no reference (URL) to the
> professed Reddit entry. You (John) didn't even bother to give the URL
> to the online article you cite here. Until you do, you're just spewing
> FUD.
>
> Did *YOU* actually check if Edge-C lost the ability of deleting search
> engines from the list of those installed? How many Chrome variants did
> you yourself test?

I cannot speak for John C, but I have tested two Chromium variants myself:

* Edge version 97.0.1072.62 -- I cannot find a delete option.

* Iron version 96.0.4900.0 -- Yes there is a delete option.

screen-shot (Edge): <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_edge(c)97.0.1072.62searchengines.png>
screen-shot (Iron): <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_iron96.0.4900.0searchengines.png>

This could be consistent with a change from major version 96 to 97.


--
Kind regards
Ralph

[VanguardLH]

Ah, you are right. I had added so many search engines (usually by
adding a path and search argument to eliminate having to wade through
submenus or subpages to get a particular type of search) that I couldn't
remember which were the default ones bundled with the web browser.

I noticed there is one bundled for Bing, and the one that I added for
Bing. I can remove the one that I added, but not the bundled one.

For Edge-C, I'm using 97.0.1072.62. Same as you. Just picked a
non-bundled (user-added) search engine looking at the options under the
3-dot menu. Instead I looked at the Yahoo! entry. It's 3-dot menu did
NOT have the Remove option. I could still rename the keyword (from
"yahoo.com" to just "yahoo"), but lost it for a bit until I noticed the
entry moved from near the end of the list to near the top, and later it
moved back to near the bottom. Boing boing boing, where is it now. I
would never use "yahoo.com" or even "yahoo" for the keyword even if it
ever did use Yahoo (which I haven't for decades), so I changed it to
just "y". But, I cannot remove the entry anymore.

Thinking Edge might use the registry to store some settings, I change
the Yahoo keyword to "y1a2h3o4o5" to give my a likely unique string on
which I could search in the registry. Nope, not found, so Edge is
storing its settings elsewhere. I loaded SysInternals' Process Monitor
to watch for events from msedge.exe as a filter (ProcMon records all
events, so the filter just eliminates having to see all events to see
just those in which you are interested). I changed the keyword for
Yahoo to "yahoo12345", and saved, to see if I could catch Edge updating
a config file. Edge creates a LOT of events, so I had to stop ProcMon
from monitoring, clear its log, edit the Yahoo keyword, start monitoring
in ProcMon, do the keyword save, and quickly stop monitoring in ProcMon.
Nope, none of the Write events were to a file that looked like holding
config data. Some session files got written into, but I was hoping to
capture Edge writing into a data file. It's possible the config changes
are temporary within the current session of Edge, and that any config
changes are made permanent by writes when closing Edge. Well, closing
Edge resulted in 5960 events before I could stop logging in ProcMon. Of
the WriteFile events, the vast majority were to .log or .tmp files. I
found some that might updates to data files, but they were hex files, so
some database file that I won't be able to edit the search engines list.
After hunting through hundreds of WriteFile events from the top of the
log, and also looking backward from the bottom of the log, I gave up
trying to find where msedge.exe might be saving a change to the search
engines list on its close.

Looked online and found:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/windows-10-microsoft-edge-browser-forensics-brent-muir
(dated 2015)

However, that is NOT for the Edge-Chromium web browser, but for the old
Edge-EdgeHTML web browser. I went under:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default
(where the default profile is stored)

but from there I couldn't tell where to go next. I found a Preferences
file under there, but a search on "yahoo" didn't find anything. Since
that is the Edge profile folder, any changes to the search engines list
should be saved there. Edge-C does not have an export for an entire
profile, just for Favorites, so the recommendation to copy an Edge
profile to another instance of Edge is to copy this folder (well, up to
the parent folder of "%localappdata%\Microsoft\Edge\User Data" which
includes the Default subfolder).

I suspect that even if I found the file holding the list of search
engines that it would be a database that I could not easily edit, if at
all. In addition, the bundled search engines might be hardcoded into
the app rather than in a config file along with other search engine
entries.

I used feedback in Edge-C to report the change of not allowing removal
of pre-installed search engines. Yeah, they are a bit deaf, but I've
found lots of feedback on the same issue is far more likely to get
addressed by Microsoft than any feedback for Google's software.

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1263679

Just because Google decided to be assholes doesn't mean Microsoft have
to brown nose. This is the arrogance of programmers that I encountered
in Software QA who thought their code and choices were so important that
just everyone must comply. I'd ask why they did a dirty uninstall.
Their attitude is that customers would only uninstall to perform a
reinstall in troubleshooting, so they would retain all the config data
in files or registry. Yeah, of course, a customer would never want a
clean uninstall, because a customer would never want to completely
remove their product, and always want to reinstall it. After refusing
to close my own bug ticket, and because I would keep updating it to move
to the top of their Open tickets list, and showing a poll from customers
requesting a clean uninstall, they eventually provided options during
uninstall to retain user data (the default) or remove all program and
data entries for a clean uninstall. I had to be stubborn, and provide
proof, that Dev was wrong in their opinion of why customers would do an
uninstall and want a clean one.

Google's attitude has always been "we know what is best for you
regardless of what you want". Here's a comment in the bug ticket:

I think prohibiting deletions is sensible and probably will fix more
problems than it would create.

A ridiculous supposition without any proof of just what problems would
be caused by deletion of pre-populated search engine entries. Not even
citing one incidence of a "problem". An example of their arrogance is
"Deleting these should either be more difficult (confirmation dialog) or
impossible (no delete option in the menu). My strong preference is to do
the latter." Yeah, don't let users choose. They don't matter. They
didn't take the best path (in their opinion, or not) but took the path
of least resistance. All they had to do in the menu list was to hide
the Remove entry for pre-populated entries, like setting the visible
attribute on an entry element to false. The entry is still there, but
invisible hence inaccessible to the user. The don't even to remove the
entry. A lot easier than adding a dependent confirmation popup on
selecting the Remove option.

There is some light in they muddy tunnel of the dev tunnel:

"in the meantime, I'll restore the Delete option in the UI. It should
return in either Chrome 98 or 99 (releasing in early Feb and early
Mar, respectively)."

So, a "problem" they perceived (but did not cite cases showing such ever
happened) was of malware changing the default search engine by deleting
it from the search engine list. Has anyone here encountered that
malicious event? They saw a possibility, contrived it a definite
vulnerability, and took a half-ass approach. A confirmation prompt
would eliminate that threat, but then it would have to appear when
removing ANY search engine entry for consistency instead of just
appearing for the pre-populated entries. After all, getting a
confirmation prompt on a change or delete has been a common behavior
ever since Windows showed up, and even back in DOS. It was a safety net
against an accidental action. How often do you delete search engine
entries that a confirmation prompt on Remove would be such a monsterous
nuisance?

[wasbit]

"John C." <r9j...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ss16lc$mnt$1...@dont-email.me...

>
>
> snip <

>
> This is a perfect example of why it's a really bad idea to base a
> browser on Chromium. Google has control of the features and code.
>

I know nothing about Chrome or Chromium because I don't use them.
However last week I updated an elderly couple's laptop & on reboot Edge came
up full screen & wouldn't move or close. The only shown option was to hit
the 'Accept' button.
Task Manager closed it & then it was removed so as not to confuse the users.
At least that was easy.
What an appalling way to try to force a browser onto users.

--
Regards
wasbit

[John C.]

I hope you're right about Vivaldi, Mick. I've been looking at it lately
as a possible second browser.

[John C.]

From the copy of Edge that I have on this W7 computer:
__________________________________________________________________________
Microsoft Edge
Version 97.0.1072.62 (Official build) (64-bit)
Microsoft Edge is up to date.
This browser is made possible by the Chromium open source project and
other open source software.

Microsoft Edge

© 2022 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
__________________________________________________________________________

I go to:

Settings and more/Settings/Privacy, search, and
services/Services/Address bar and search/Manage search engines

I can *add* search engines or "Make default" or "Edit" any of the four
search engines listed there, but there is no option that I can find
which will allow me to remove any of them. And when I try to edit any of
them, the field under "URL with %s in place of query" only gives me a
circle with a diagonal bar through it and the field is grayed out.

I can inspect that element, but AFAICT I can't edit it.

As for me verifying whether current versions of every other web browser
based on Chromium will also prevent search engine removal, get real.

[John C.]

wasbit wrote:

> John C. wrote:
>>
>> snip <
>>
>> This is a perfect example of why it's a really bad idea to base a
>> browser on Chromium. Google has control of the features and code.
>
> I know nothing about Chrome or Chromium because I don't use them.

Me neither. However, I'm about to have to install Chrome on my laptop so
that a friend can visit a particular website when she comes over.

> However last week I updated an elderly couple's laptop & on reboot Edge
> came up full screen & wouldn't move or close. The only shown option was
> to hit the 'Accept' button.
> Task Manager closed it & then it was removed so as not to confuse the
> users. At least that was easy.
> What an appalling way to try to force a browser onto users.

I haven't run into this problem on my laptop (which is running W10) yet
after an update, and at this point it's fully up to date. But that
doesn't mean it can't happen under some circumstances. That definitely
would be a reprehensible thing to pull on any end user.

[John C.]

Might not be an issue:

https://www.ghacks.net/2022/01/17/vivaldi-unusable-navigation-buttons-fixed-in-latest-snapshot-update/

"Vivaldi 2549.3 Snapshot fixes the unusable navigation buttons issue and
retains option to delete search engines"

[Mick Finnlay]

I am minimising my exposure to all things Google as far as I reasonably
can (searching via DDG, using only custom ROMs (mostly Lineage) on my
Android devices etc etc) and I have never installed (and never will
install) Chrome on my Linux boxen. However, I've used Vivaldi now for
more than two years in parallel with Pale Moon for those websites where
PM throws in the towel (sadly, the number of these is growing
relentlessly, mostly because web designers these days test Chrome and
perhaps FF but not the rest). I also use mobile Vivaldi on my Android
devices (in parallel with the DDG browser). So far, I am happy with what
they're doing.

--
Mick

[VanguardLH]

Mostly I wanted the source that you copied but to which you never gave
credit. You copied someone else's article but never gave the URL to it.
You obviously didn't write the content of your post (between the
underscore lines). You copied it. From WHERE? Attempting to present
as your own material is plagarism. Maybe you forgot to add the URL to
the cited article.

I didn't ask you to test every web browser (that is a Chrome variant).
I asked if you tested on ANY to validate what you proliferated. In
fact, I specifically asked if you tested on Edge-C which you obviously
have as stated in your reply.

In my reply to Fox, I did test, but incorrectly (on the wrong entry in
the search engine list). Fox helped correct my test (to find one of the
pre-populated entries, and not one that was user-added) to discover what
your cited without reference was true. I even found and noted the
Mozilla bugzilla ticket that your cited article mentioned but never gave
a URL to the ticket.

You did bring up the info, but please cite your sources next time. To
ensure you aren't distributing FUD, verify what you cite before copying
and re-posting it. Reddit is not a reliable news source.

[VanguardLH]

How Vivaldi side-stepped the unwanted change was not by modifying the
source code they used in their Chrome variant. They jumped from the
Chromium 96 branch to Chromium 98. As the Chromium bug ticket explains
at https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1263679, the
Remove (delete) option returns in Chrome 98 or 99. Apparently it
already returned in v98, and why Vivaldi adopted that code branch.

Expect Google to continue trying to disable the Remove option in the
search engine list, or ensure the user made the change. They perceive
(no citation on actual known malicious events) the possibility of
malware deleting some, or all, of the search engines, and why they
wanted to remove/hide the Remove option for the pre-populated search
engine entries. At the very top of the bug ticket has one user suggest
adding a confirmation prompt when deleting an entry in the list. That
would eliminate malicious deletion. Using a confirmation prompt on a
destructive action, like deleting something, closing a changed file
without saving it, and so on has been behavior existing in all versions
of Windows, even back to DOS, and also for many apps. Yeah, some users
will complain that their action isn't immediate, it gets interrupted
with a prompt, but how many times do you edit the search engine list
that a confirmation prompt would be a monsterous nuisance? How often
have you edited the search engine list?

The whole issue came up because Google made a bad choice on the method
to avert [preceived] malicious behavior against the search engine list.

[VanguardLH]

Mick Finnlay <Mick.F...@yopmail.com> wrote:

> I am minimising my exposure to all things Google as far as I
> reasonably can (searching via DDG, using only custom ROMs (mostly
> Lineage) on my Android devices etc etc) and I have never installed
> (and never will install) Chrome on my Linux boxen. However, I've used
> Vivaldi now for more than two years in parallel with Pale Moon for
> those websites where PM throws in the towel (sadly, the number of
> these is growing relentlessly, mostly because web designers these
> days test Chrome and perhaps FF but not the rest). I also use mobile
> Vivaldi on my Android devices (in parallel with the DDG browser). So
> far, I am happy with what they're doing.

DDG uses the APIs of several online search providers, including Google
Search API. So, you're still getting stuff from Google, but minus the
tracking args in the results. This is how DDG, Startpage, and other
search providers acquire their web crawling: they let other search
services do the work, then use APIs to those search service to reap the
efforts of their work.

While I use Startpage (launched as ixquick back in 1998) to anonymize
its API queries to Google, there are concerns that System 1's Privacy
Group subdivision, a commercial company that specializes in targeted
advertising, that acquired Startpage might someday modify Startpage to
start tracking their users's queries. Hasn't happened yet since the
acquisition back in September 2019, but it concerns Startpage users. If
there are ever reports against Startpage's owner beginning to track
their users' search queries, I'll switch to DDG. Startpage's comment
can be seen at:

https://restoreprivacy.com/startpage-system1-privacy-one-group/

By the way, their comment about their base location on Netherlands and
"provide protection from Patriot Act regulations" reminds me that DDG is
based in Pennsylvania, USA, so they are subject to such regulations, and
are susceptible to NSLs (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter)
where DDG could be forced, by federal court, to start logging specific
inquiries or users. DDG, due to how NSLs work, can never reveal they
are impinged by an NSL. They could perhaps issue a Warrant Canary
notice (trying to notify users that something happened that they can't
say what happened; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary), as did
TrueCrypt when the feds hit them with an NSL, but that won't alter they
are no longer as private as they claim. Violating an NSL incurs jail
time, and loss of assets, and can shut down a company long enough to put
them out of business. I prefer a search engine that is outside the
legal reach of the 5eyes countries (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes), so
I'll stick with Startpage, for now.

As for search results relevance:

https://www.startpage.com/do/search?q=chrome%2097%20search%20list%20delete
3rd result is first relevant

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=chrome+97+search+list+delete&ia=web
1st result is first relevant

https://www.google.com/search?q=chrome%2097%20seach%20list%20delete
2nd result (after scrolling past Google's featured snippet) is first
relevant

DDG wins on finding a relevant result in that search. However, many
times the first releavent hit using Google is at, or near, the top of
the results page while I have to scroll down a page, or more, to find
the first relevant hit when using Startpage or DDG.

I still like Startpage's anonymous view. Instead of using the URL in
the search results, I can click on a mask icon that has me go through
Startpage's proxy/VPN to view the site, so not only is the search engine
keeping me private, but also my visit to a site in their search results.
I don't see DDG keeping my site visits private (from the URLs in the
search results). That's probably the biggest factor why I still use
Startpage over DDG.

https://www.startpage.com/en/anonymous-view/

[Nic]

Do you see a way to crawl out of the belly of the beast?

[The Horny Goat]

On Sun, 16 Jan 2022 05:30:18 -0800, "John C." <r9j...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>According to a commit on the open-source project's page, the proposal to
>remove the delete button was made in October 2021. The developers felt
>that deleting the search engines was too easy, and that it was a bad
>thing because it would not be easy for users to add them back, as it is
>not possible to set the search provider for suggestions, new tag page
>and other specialized URLs. Following a small discussion which concluded
>that deleting a search provider could cause more problems than it would
>break, the change was approved a day later when Chromium 97 was released.

If it was felt deleting was too easy then just replace it with a check
box that did not actually remove the search engine but removed it from
being processed. Hard drive space is cheap these days so most would
not be seriously inconvenienced and we could get on with using our
software the way we want to not the way the devs want us to.

[John C.]

VanguardLH wrote:
> Mick Finnlay wrote:

All good to know. Thanks, VanguardLH.

[John C.]

My bad. I got distracted before I finished composing the post and forgot
to add the link. Here it is:

https://www.ghacks.net/2022/01/15/chromium-based-browsers-delete-default-search-engines/

> You obviously didn't write the content of your post (between the
> underscore lines). You copied it. From WHERE? Attempting to present
> as your own material is plagarism. Maybe you forgot to add the URL to
> the cited article.
>
> I didn't ask you to test every web browser (that is a Chrome variant).
> I asked if you tested on ANY to validate what you proliferated. In
> fact, I specifically asked if you tested on Edge-C which you obviously
> have as stated in your reply.
>
> In my reply to Fox, I did test, but incorrectly (on the wrong entry in
> the search engine list). Fox helped correct my test (to find one of the
> pre-populated entries, and not one that was user-added) to discover what
> your cited without reference was true. I even found and noted the
> Mozilla bugzilla ticket that your cited article mentioned but never gave
> a URL to the ticket.
>
> You did bring up the info, but please cite your sources next time. To
> ensure you aren't distributing FUD, verify what you cite before copying
> and re-posting it. Reddit is not a reliable news source.

https://www.ghacks.net/2022/01/15/chromium-based-browsers-delete-default-search-engines/

[Ralph Fox]

On Mon, 17 Jan 2022 19:49:22 +1300, Ralph Fox wrote:

> I cannot speak for John C, but I have tested two Chromium variants myself:
>
> * Edge version 97.0.1072.62 -- I cannot find a delete option.
>
> * Iron version 96.0.4900.0 -- Yes there is a delete option.
>
> screen-shot (Edge): <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_edge(c)97.0.1072.62searchengines.png>
> screen-shot (Iron): <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_iron96.0.4900.0searchengines.png>
>
> This could be consistent with a change from major version 96 to 97.

And the 'delete' option is missing in Iron version 97.0.4950.0, released 2022-01-20.

screen-shot (Iron 97): <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_iron97.0.4950.0searchengines.png>



--
Kind regards
Ralph

[John C.]

Seems to me that if you can edit the search engine, you would be able to
scramble the URL at least and make it non-functional that way.

Not as good as being able to completely delete the search engine though.

[Ralph Fox]

On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 04:43:21 -0800, John C. wrote:
> Ralph Fox wrote:
>> Ralph Fox wrote:
>>>
>>> I cannot speak for John C, but I have tested two Chromium variants myself:
>>>
>>> * Edge version 97.0.1072.62 -- I cannot find a delete option.
>>>
>>> * Iron version 96.0.4900.0 -- Yes there is a delete option.
>>>
>>> screen-shot (Edge): <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_edge(c)97.0.1072.62searchengines.png>
>>> screen-shot (Iron): <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_iron96.0.4900.0searchengines.png>
>>>
>>> This could be consistent with a change from major version 96 to 97.
>>
>>
>> And the 'delete' option is missing in Iron version 97.0.4950.0, released 2022-01-20.
>>
>> screen-shot (Iron 97): <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_iron97.0.4950.0searchengines.png>
>
> Seems to me that if you can edit the search engine, you would be able to
> scramble the URL at least and make it non-functional that way.

No. See my earlier post in this thread where I wrote, "I can edit

the name and keyword of any search engine, but *not* the search
engine's URL."

Some screen-shots for you, showing the URL cannot be edited:

* Edge 97: <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_cannot_edit_search_engine_url_in_edge_v97_(chromium).png>

* Iron 97: <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_cannot-edit_search_engine_url_in_iron_v97_(chromium).png>


--
Kind regards
Ralph

If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.
If turnips were swords, I'd have one at my side.
If "ifs" and "ands" were pots and pans,
There'd be no work for tinkers' hands.

[VanguardLH]

Ralph Fox wrote:

> On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 04:43:21 -0800, John C. wrote:
>> Ralph Fox wrote:
>>> Ralph Fox wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I cannot speak for John C, but I have tested two Chromium variants myself:
>>>>
>>>> * Edge version 97.0.1072.62 -- I cannot find a delete option.
>>>>
>>>> * Iron version 96.0.4900.0 -- Yes there is a delete option.
>>>>
>>>> screen-shot (Edge): <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_edge(c)97.0.1072.62searchengines.png>
>>>> screen-shot (Iron): <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_iron96.0.4900.0searchengines.png>
>>>>
>>>> This could be consistent with a change from major version 96 to 97.
>>>
>>> And the 'delete' option is missing in Iron version 97.0.4950.0, released 2022-01-20.
>>>
>>> screen-shot (Iron 97): <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_iron97.0.4950.0searchengines.png>
>>
>> Seems to me that if you can edit the search engine, you would be able to
>> scramble the URL at least and make it non-functional that way.
>
> No. See my earlier post in this thread where I wrote, "I can edit
> the name and keyword of any search engine, but *not* the search
> engine's URL."

The scheduled release date for Firefox 98 is 2022-03-08, about 2-1/2
weeks away. The bugzilla ticket says the delete returns in FF 98 or 99,
but Vivaldi jumped to 98 fro 96 to eliminate the loss of delete, so it
looks like FF 98 recovers the delete option.

[Ralph Fox]

2022-03-08 is about 6.5 weeks away. Firefox 97 is not even released yet.

If you are beta testing Firefox you may have Firefox beta 97.
In Firefox beta 97.0b6 I deleted the built-in "eBay" search engine and
it remained deleted. This is different to the Chromium issue discussed
in this thread where the built-in search engines cannot be deleted.


Firefox is *not* based on Chromium.
* What Chromium did with search engines would not affect Firefox.


Vivaldi is not based on Firefox. Vivaldi is based on Chromium.
* Whatever Vivaldi 98 does is no evidence of what Firefox 98 does.
* Whatever Firefox does with search engines will not affect Vivaldi.


--
Kind regards
Ralph
🦊

[VanguardLH]

Okay, I'll have to start drinking coffee again. Geez, compound errors.
Happens when you visit multiple newsgroups: forget which one you're in.

> Vivaldi is not based on Firefox. Vivaldi is based on Chromium.
> * Whatever Vivaldi 98 does is no evidence of what Firefox 98 does.
> * Whatever Firefox does with search engines will not affect Vivaldi.

Oh, well, I wasn't devastated by the loss, anyway, and only noticed
because of the thread started here. I don't use Chrome, but do have
Edge-C as a backup.

[John C.]

Ralph Fox wrote:
> John C. wrote:
>> Ralph Fox wrote:
>>> Ralph Fox wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I cannot speak for John C, but I have tested two Chromium variants myself:
>>>> * Edge version 97.0.1072.62 -- I cannot find a delete option.
>>>> * Iron version 96.0.4900.0 -- Yes there is a delete option.
>>>> screen-shot (Edge): <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_edge(c)97.0.1072.62searchengines.png>
>>>> screen-shot (Iron): <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_iron96.0.4900.0searchengines.png>
>>>>
>>>> This could be consistent with a change from major version 96 to 97.
>>>
>>> And the 'delete' option is missing in Iron version 97.0.4950.0, released 2022-01-20.
>>>
>>> screen-shot (Iron 97): <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_iron97.0.4950.0searchengines.png>
>>
>> Seems to me that if you can edit the search engine, you would be able to
>> scramble the URL at least and make it non-functional that way.
>
> No. See my earlier post in this thread where I wrote, "I can edit
> the name and keyword of any search engine, but *not* the search
> engine's URL."
>
> Some screen-shots for you, showing the URL cannot be edited:
> * Edge 97: <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_cannot_edit_search_engine_url_in_edge_v97_(chromium).png>
> * Iron 97: <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=24_cannot-edit_search_engine_url_in_iron_v97_(chromium).png>

I just checked my copy of Edge, and I can't edit the URL for the following:

Bing
Yahoo
Google
DuckDuckGo

However, I *can* edit the URL for any search engine that I've added (in
this case, for bimart.com).

[Ralph Fox]

You can also delete the search engines you've added, just not the default
search engines.

* For the search engines you've added, you don't need to scramble
the URL as a work-around when you can delete that search engine.

* For the default search engines, John C. has previously reported that
you cannot edit the URL of the default search engines:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ QUOTE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: "John C." <r9j...@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2022 07:00:33 -0800
Message-ID: <ss40ak$mh2$1...@dont-email.me>

I can *add* search engines or "Make default" or "Edit" any of the four
search engines listed there, but there is no option that I can find
which will allow me to remove any of them. And when I try to edit any of
them, the field under "URL with %s in place of query" only gives me a
circle with a diagonal bar through it and the field is grayed out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ QUOTE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

--
Kind regards
Ralph