
Ask HN: A way to make a search link without choosing the search engine? - gregoriol
I was making a link on a website to send the user to a search on a search engine. The first basic idea would be to make a link to &quot;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?q=Paris,+France&quot;.<p>But how could we make a link that doesn&#x27;t choose the search engine for the user, and lets the user choose which one they prefer? Is there a service that does this? or even better something that doesn&#x27;t require any third-party, maybe some javascript library?<p>edit: The same could be applied to maps, like Wikipedia&#x27;s external map chooser: a link that would let the user choose which map service they would like to use instead of sending them to one by default.
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nreece
There doesn't seem to be any native option to perform search in the default
search engine provider set in the browser.

There used to be a external.IsSearchProviderInstalled native JavaScript
method[1], but it was deprecated by browsers, most likely to prevent them
detecting and recommending one search provider over the other.

Simplest workaround will be to show a dropdown select list or page modal with
search engine options, for the user to be able to select their choice.

[1]
[http://help.dottoro.com/ljfslnsp.php](http://help.dottoro.com/ljfslnsp.php)

