I don't actually know how this works. Based on what I've read on the internet... Cortana is sending a Bing query to Firefox and Firefox is redirecting it to your default search site. It would seem that extracting the query terms from the Bing URL and feeding them to the search plugin would be fairly standard, but maybe it has to be custom built?

No, the code seems general. It should work with any plugin that works in the search bar, as far as I can see. I'm not a programmer, so what I see may not be that illuminating. ;-)

https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/components/nsBrowserContentHandler.js#759

Actually, hmm, could there be a problem with search sites that take a POST instead of a GET? Sites that use GET have the search terms in the URL, while sites that use POST have them in a (simulated) form body and they do not show in the URL. Can you see a pattern like that with the sites that aren't working?

Here is what i see in the URL after dong a serach from the ixquck.com webpage

https://ixquick.com/do/search

The search result links are shown on the ixquick.com search webpage

Here is what I see in the URL after doing a serach from the Yahoo search page.

https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A86.J3degcpVHSsAqLql87UF;_ylc=X1MDOTU4MTA0NjkEX3IDMgRmcgN5aHMtbW96aWxsYS0wMDEEZ3ByaWQDYlZiTG9Ed0RUVm1JX2R0dUxtWDhXQQRuX3JzbHQDMARuX3N1Z2cDOQRvcmlnaW4Dc2VhcmNoLnlhaG9vLmNvbQRwb3MDMARwcXN0cgMEcHFzdHJsAwRxc3RybAMxNARxdWVyeQNkZXRyb2l0IHRpZ2VycwR0X3N0bXADMTQzOTMzNDc3MQ--?p=detroit+tigers&fr=sfp&fr2=sb-top-search&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001&iscqry=

The search result links are shown on the Yahoo search webpage.

We might need some more examples.

What if you install the search plugin from this site? There should be a green circle with a plus on the search bar magnifying glass so you can click that and use the "button" to add this site to your search engines. Then you can make it the default temporarily and see what happens with a Cortana search.

I installed the ixquick and DuckDuckGo search engines from the Firefox add-on website. ixquick.com is my default search engine. I tested making DuckDuckGo my default search engine and got the same non search result from Cortana as ixquck.com. However, When I make Yahoo, Bing, Google or wikipedia, all of which come with Firefox the default search in Firefox Cortana works properly.

For DuckDuckGo, when you search it from Firefox's search bar, do the query terms appear in the address bar? On mine they do, but I installed from DDG directly.

I don't search from the the search bar. I use the search area in the webpage. ixquck.com is my Start Page and I am using the New Tab Homepage add-on so when I open a new tab in Firefox it opens the ixquck webspage and I search from the box on the webpage not the URL.

If I want to use DuckDuckGo (SSL) I just go to my bookmarks and open the DuckDuckGo (SSL) webspage and search from there. The results above were generated that way.

I will try searching from the URL and post the results with ixquck as my default search engine.

I get the same result as in my post above when I search from the search box with ixquck set as my default search engine

Here is the result in the URL when I search from the URL area

https://ixquick.com/do/metasearch.pl

Searcj results appear on the page.

Thank you for clarifying. I'm just looking at how the search plugins work, not how to sites work if you use their own forms.

What I'm wondering is whether this switch of the Bing query terms works with non-pre-installed search plugins that use GET requests (query terms in the URL), or whether it fails with ALL non-pre-installed search plugins.

Pre-installed:

Amazon - GET request (terms in URL) Bing - GET request (terms in URL) eBay - [not tested] Google - GET request (terms in URL) Twitter - [not tested] Wikipedia - [not tested] Yahoo - GET request (terms in URL) DuckDuckGo - GET request (terms in URL)

Custom on mine:

Startpage.com: POST request (terms NOT in URL)

Custom on yours:

IXQuick: POST request (terms NOT in URL)

I'll watch for other Windows 10 users mentioning problems with their custom search plugins.

I did notice something odd about DuckDuckGo: I deleted the custom plugin I had previously installed and restored the default one. My first try from the search bar just took me to the DDG home page with no results, but my second try was successful. I don't know whether that was a rare glitch or has something to do with the problem you're seeing with Cortana.

Re DuckDuckGo I believe there are two search engines. DuckDuckGo and DuckDuckGo (SSl) just as there are two with ixquck. http and https.

Maybe the one you installed was different than the the plugin in that comes with Firefox.

It could be the problem is related to SSL. I use Bitdefender Total Security for my AV and I have noticed in past that when do a fresh install of Firefox unless BDTS tells you to restart Firefox to get the best security or something like that than the https://www.ixquck.com search page is not reachable unless I turn off SSL scanning in BDTS. As along as BDTS gives me the warning message to restart Firefox after I have assigned ixquck as my Start Page there is no problem in accessing it wth SSL scanning turned on BDTS.

Usually if there is an SSL problem you get a custom error page, so I think it's more a matter of some glitch in Firefox passing along the query terms. Or if your DDG plugin uses HTTP And DDG is redirecting to HTTPS, maybe it is getting lost in that process? But if that's the problem, you should get the identical (bad) behavior from the search bar.

The results in the Address Bar are almost identicle for ixquick and DDG whether you enter the search information in Cortana, the search box or in the Address bar.

I entered 'Find Target in

1. Search Bar - URL result https://ixquick.com/do/metasearch.pl 2. Adress Bar - URL result https://ixquick.com/do/metasearch.pl 3. Cortana (Clicked on one of the answers in Cortana) - URL result https://ixquick.com/

In the first two instances '/do/metasearch.pl' in the address bar after the striking the Enter key resulted in links to query on the webpage

In the last instance when clicking on a suggestion in Cortana that came up during typing the query you do not get '/do/metasearch.pl' in the Address Bar and the web page that pops up is just the ixquck's search page without any links.

Now we know from prior that '/do/metasearch.pl' is not what you get in the Address Bar when you search from Cortana using say Yahoo has your default search engine. However, it seems to me getting the '/do/metasearch.pl' in the Address Bar may be a privacy feature of ixquck and DDG. In anycase regardless of whether you get that or what you get with say Yahoo links with the answer to query appear below.

So ISTM that the question is why isn't '/do/metasearch.pl' showing up in the Address Bar when you do a query from Cortana with ixquck as the default search engine? I would imagine you get the same result with DDG as ixquck.

I think the answer has something to do with the way Mozilla implemented this Cortana search feature in Firefox 40 and frankly I consider this a bug that needs to be addressed.

I tried to download Windows 10 but it's going to take a while yet. Maybe tomorrow...

I assume you haven't enabled the experimental e10s feature (browser.tabs.remote.autostart preference). There have been search problems with that feature.

You can file a bug here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/

Hints: https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Mozilla/QA/Bug_writing_guidelines

Please put a link to the bug back in this thread so I can add anything I learn.

This is getting to be too time consuming. I tried to create an account over at Bugzilla and got this error message.

'You have requested an account token too recently to request another. Please wait a while and try again.'

I already have three Mozilla accounts, one for support. one for add-ons and one for Sync. No idea what a Persona account is.

My suggestion is that you try and recreate the error in Windows 10 with Firefox 40. If you can than I think it would be best if you submitted the bug report at Bugzilla and posted here that you submitted the bug report.. If you can't post back here writing so and I will try at that time to create a Bugzilla account and post back afterwards one way or the other.

I am done with this for now and hopefully for good proivded you can resproduce the error on Windows 10. Sorry I don't have the time to spend much more time on this project as I have too many other things working at this time.

I finally got Windows 10 installed and tested using the task bar search box. I filed a bug here: Bug 1194283 – Expand Windows 10 search redirection to POST plugins.

Thanks

There is another issue related to Cortana searches.

If you enter a term in the Cortana search box say Boston, it will give you a number of search results. If you select one of them it will open the Edge browser and take you to the website listed in the Cortana search results even if Firefox is set as the default browser with all its defaults.

If you go to the Control Panel in Windows and open up Default Apps Edge is listed showing two for the number of its defaults. If you go to Associate Files in the Control Panel and look under apps Edge is not listed.

So it appears there is no simple way to get Firefox to open when you select one of the links shown in Cortana as a result of typing in your question or word(s) in the Cortana search box.

This problem is different than what we have been discussing which is a problem related to striking the Enter key after you enter your search term or phrase in Cortana. This is the one for which you submitted the bug report.

Summary. If you hit the Enter key after entering a phrase in Cortana it creates the problem metnitoned above. However after entering your phrase Cortana search will list a bunch of options. If you select the option by clicking on it Edge opens and takes you to the website even if Firefox is listed as the default browsesr with all its Default options enabled as I wrote above.

If you add to your word or phrase entered in Cortana by typing one of the options listed in the Cortana search rrather than clicking on the link shown in the Cortana search and then strike the Enter key rather than clicking on the link in the Cortana serach it creates the problem in your bug report.

I don't think Mozilla can do anything about Cortana using Edge. Someone would need to come up with a way to modify/override Windows 10 itself. It wouldn't surprise me if that is under discussion on other sites that have extensive Windows 10 discussion.

I agree that Mozilla should not be messing with Windows, in this case Cortana.

The problem here is Microsoft. If you set Firefox as your default browser and enable all its defaults Associate Files still shows a number of file extensions associated with Internet Explorer. Since these extenstions are shown in Associate File along with the app they are associated with, in this case IE, the user can change the app associated with these file extensions from IE to Firefox.

However, it seems that Microsoft has chosen to either not show the file extensions associated with Edge or made it difficult to find them. Then again the way that Cortana works there might not be a file association with its links but Edge is hard coded into Windows. My guess is probably the latter. This would mean when Default Apps shows two file extensions associated with Edge these are hard coded extensions and maybe uniquie to Edge.

So users of Cortana are stuck with using Edge if they click on any of the results shown in the Cortana search. It is only by striking the Enter key after entering the search word or phrase rather than clicking on the links shown in Cortana can a Firefox user get a listing a of the search results by their default search engine in Firefrox, nothwistanding the bug that we have been discussing and for which you submitted a bug report to Bugzilla.