Automatically add search engines

Copper Contributor

Google Chrome has had a feature for many years that I heavily rely on for fast web searching, which is automatic adding of search engines.  It's able to detect search URLs used on individual websites, and automatically record those URLs into its list of stored list of search engines.  This makes it so that you can start typing the website host name into the search bar and then hit Tab, and it turns the omnibar into a search bar for that specific website.  This is an incredible time saver for searching because I don't have to load websites in new tabs before actually starting searches on them.

 

From what I've seen, this feature exists even in the core Chromium browser, but for some unknown reason, it's non-existent in every other Chromium-based browser I've tried, and it's one of the killer features that keeps me tied to Chrome.  To clarify, all of them can turn the omnibar into a website-specific search bar, but none of them automatically record those websites' search URLs in the search engine list.  When I first installed the new Edge dev channel build (the first one available to the public), I immediately checked for this feature, and I could have sworn it was working as expected, making me extremely happy.  However, since then, I've found that search engine URLs are NOT being automatically added, so either I was dreaming, or the feature got disabled in a subsequent build update in the dev channel.  I've searched through the settings and flags list, but can't find any switch for such a feature.

 

Could this feature please be re-enabled in Edge?  Even if it's not desired to be on by default, for privacy reasons or whatever, please make an option to turn it on somehow.  I've been using Edge Insider full time both at work and home since it became available, and I really like it overall, but the lack of this automatic search engine feature is really getting on my nerves, as I've having to manually re-add all my commonly used search engines from Chrome.

1 Reply

@bradleym 

 

I checked my Microsoft Edge Insider installs and this appears to be working. Version(s) I have today installed are listed below. If you are running a different version let me know so I can investigate. 

 

Too make sure we are talking about the same thing, in Microsoft Edge Insiders, Settings and more (...), Privacy & services, Address bar - I see lots of different search engines from sites I've visited and synced across different devices via my MSA.

 

Windows 10

  • Canary - Version 76.0.176.0 (Official build) canary (64-bit)
  • Developer - Version 76.0.172.0 (Official build) dev (64-bit)

 

macOS

  • Canary - Version 76.0.176.0 (Official build) canary (64-bit)

 

Thanks,

Darren