I just reacted to a sentence of the parent comment, rejecting one of its points where the parent commenter does compare Chrome with Firefox.
I do agree with the parent commenter that some things in Firefox are not designed for the user, but for the adcertisers. Which is something I don't like about Firefox.
> In Firefox, this is not possible
You can implement OpenSearch (which is basically a small XML file describing your search engine to write), then you'll be able to add your local search enigne: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/OpenSearch. It's a bit less straightforward than just a URL but if you implemented an actual search engine, it's nothing, and you probably want to handle suggestions, for which you need OpenSearch anyway.
Though for your use case, the web shortcuts feature of firefox seems a bit more convenient. I guess you don't always want to direct your searches to your web console, just sometimes, so you currently have to temporarily switch search engines when you want to do this. With a web shortcut, you just prefix your text with a word (which can be one char long). This works by adding a bookrmark, and setting this word in the bookmark.
"I guess you don't want to drect your searches to your web console."
The web form is for sending copied and pasted text to the frecon console.
For various reasons, I do not use the Ctrl-Alt-T browser-based "console".
I do not use a graphical web browser much. I do searches from the console. I type the search query on the command line or into a file if I am doing bulk searches.
As such, when I set a localhost address as a custom default search engine I am doing so as a way of disabling searching from the address bar. It also functions as a shortcut to reach local HTML files served by a localhost-bound httpd/netcat. For example, if the default search URL is set to http://127.0.0.1/%s.html and the local HTML file is a web form called clip.html, then I type "clip" in the address bar to open the web form.
Mozilla really wants to send everything that a user types in the address bar to a remote address, e.g., that of its business partner Google, before the user ever hits Enter. This desire, perhaps an implicit or explicit requirement of their contractual relationship, is reflected in the Firefox default settings, i.e., the design of Firefox.
Your use case is quite interesting but you do realize that it is highly specific and that not supporting it (though I told you a way with which you could use to make it work) is in no way a witness of the browser not being user-focused? Another way would be to bookmark clip.html and set the keyword shortcut to "clip", for each page you have. Or you could have a page displaying a form and set it as a new tab page. Or you could set up a keyword shortcut for local host/%s.html. There are several easy ways you can use to convince Firefox to do what you want to do, so much that it almost invalidates your highly specific example of "Firefox is not user centric". You are highjacking a feature related to search engines that was not made for this use case, and you are not using the Firefox feature Chrome doesn't have which is designed for exactly your use case.
> Mozilla really wants to send everything that a user types in the address bar to a remote address, e.g., that of its business partner Google, before the user ever hits Enter. This desire, perhaps an implicit or explicit requirement of their contractual relationship, is reflected in the Firefox default settings, i.e., the design of Firefox.
All browsers do this, including Chrome. There is nothing Firefox specifically does here. I don't like this feature but it is expected to be there by default from virtually every user. It is also very easy to disable this feature.
But I don't need to be conviced that Firefox is ad supported and doesn't have optimal defaults because of this. I know, and I wish it were not like this, and kinda hope another browser with another business model will somehow appear if Firefox can't be this browser, but for now every browsers are ad supported. Even Safari (which also has fundings from other sources of income that I don't like neither). And Chrome, of all browsers, is absolutely not a model that can be used against Firefox on the topic.
Yet Mozilla apparently wants us to believe Firefox is different. If in fact it was a browser designed for users cf. advertisers, it would surely choose a different design. Alas, it chooses essentially the same design geared toward facilitating online advertising.
On the one hand HN commenters defending Mozilla argue Firefox is different, in fact better than Chrome. And yet on the other hand Firefox more or less matches Chrome, "feature" by "feature". HN commenters claiming to have worked for Mozilla in the past have stated this is intentional and makes sense. They are likely correct.
Anyway, I am not a graphical browser user. I use different, text-only software. I see no ads. This works and makes sense for me.
Comparing graphical browsers does not make much sense for me. To me, they all suck. They are more similar than different.
For others who rely on these graphical browsers, comparisons might make more sense.
Computer owners and internet subscribers striving to control their hardware, e.g., trying to prevent unwanted UDP and TCP transmissions. These so-called browser "features" seem to benefit advertisers and advertising corporations more than they benefit computer owners and internet subscribers.
I do agree with the parent commenter that some things in Firefox are not designed for the user, but for the adcertisers. Which is something I don't like about Firefox.
> In Firefox, this is not possible
You can implement OpenSearch (which is basically a small XML file describing your search engine to write), then you'll be able to add your local search enigne: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/OpenSearch. It's a bit less straightforward than just a URL but if you implemented an actual search engine, it's nothing, and you probably want to handle suggestions, for which you need OpenSearch anyway.
Though for your use case, the web shortcuts feature of firefox seems a bit more convenient. I guess you don't always want to direct your searches to your web console, just sometimes, so you currently have to temporarily switch search engines when you want to do this. With a web shortcut, you just prefix your text with a word (which can be one char long). This works by adding a bookrmark, and setting this word in the bookmark.