Adding DuckDuckGo properly to Firefox

Needed to re-add DuckDuckGo search to Firefox manually.

Install Add-on

Install Add custom search engine addon from addons.mozilla.org.

Get search parameters

Navigate to DuckDuckGo.com, enter the Settings page, click “Show Bookmarklet and Settings Data”, copy the “Bookmarklet URL”. For me, it looks like: duckduckgo.com/?kah=de…

Enter info in addon

Open the interface to add a new search engine by locating the blue looking glass icon in the menu bar (Not in Firefox Settings! It is an addon with its own interface).

With %s substituted for the search term, add the following as search URL in the addon: duckduckgo.com/?q=%s?kah….

We do not need to use POST queries here.

The icon is available at favicon.ico

Then check “Advanced settings”.

The “Suggest URL” for auto-suggestions in the search bar is https://ac.duckduckgo.com/ac/?q={searchTerms} (Yes, {searchTerms} this time instead of %s).

Give the engine a name, e.g. “DDG”, then hit “Add custom search engine, then, on the next page, follow the instruction to add the search engine. You may also set DDG as the default in Firefox search settings.

Full OpenSearch XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">
<ShortName>DDG</ShortName>
<Description>DuckDuckGo</Description>
<InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>
<Image height="16" width="16">https://duckduckgo.com/favicon.ico</Image>
<Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="https://duckduckgo.com/?q={searchTerms}&amp;kah=de-de&amp;kl=de-de&amp;k5=2&amp;k1=-1&amp;kk=-1&amp;kaj=m&amp;kay=b&amp;kak=-1&amp;kax=-1&amp;kaq=-1&amp;kap=-1&amp;kao=-1&amp;kau=-1&amp;kt=n&amp;kae=-1&amp;ks=m&amp;kw=w&amp;ka=n&amp;kd=-1"/>
<Url type="application/x-suggestions+json" method="GET" template="https://ac.duckduckgo.com/ac/?q={searchTerms}"/>
</OpenSearchDescription>