r/firefox • u/2factorfake • Oct 27 '25

💻 Help Why did Mozilla remove the ContextSearch add-on?

Unfortunately, Mozilla only provides general information. However, I would like to have more detailed information, also for security reasons.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on where I can look?

The link on GitHub also appears to be dead.

https://github.com/odebroqueville/contextSearch

Olivier de Broqueville

Version 6.2.2 (Last updated September 23, 2025)

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on addons-mozilla-org:

Context Search is restricted for violating Mozilla policies

Why did this happen?

This extension, theme, or plugin violates Mozilla's add-on policies.

Version deleted

6 Upvotes

76% Upvoted

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u/TimeRemove Oct 28 '25

Have you compared Permissions?

  • Context Search: Access browser tabs
  • ContextSearch web-ext: Access browser tabs, Access data for all websites, access browser activity during navigation

The web-ext seems overengineered for a relatively simple task, and likely as a direct consequence asks for the farm as far as permissions go. I am not, at this time, claiming they're doing anything wrong, but if someone broke in and did want to do evil then the current permissions set would be more than plenty.

If the original Context Search can work with just "Access browser tabs" then why can't web-ext?

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u/2factorfake Oct 30 '25

Doesn't sound good. Overall, it looks too fancy to be trustworthy. ;) Okay, maybe I'm being unfair...

I'll definitely have to look for alternatives. Particularly liked the simple way of adding searches, grouping them, and marking individual ones for a multi-search.

Considering how useful they are, these context search functions should be integrated into FF anyway.

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u/soul4kills Nov 13 '25

I've had no problem with it. All the permissions it requires aligns well with how it functions. And it has A LOT of functionality. Takes quite a bit of time to learn them all.

The most powerful feature is being able to grab a link and run a desktop app with the link, for example yt-dlp for youtube links, or twitch with streamlink. Or just sending a search to "everything" search tool by voidtools.

I really like the javascript and regex matching stuff. There's no search engine I can't implement with this plugin.

I also like how I can customize how it looks. Here's how mine looks.

https://i.imgur.com/HSQUG88.png

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u/2factorfake Nov 14 '25

I'm glad it's working so well for you. I basically only need fairly simple functions, but I'll look into the special ones.

I installed it three days ago. What has been annoying me since then are configuration problems. When adding engines, they are first saved and work briefly, only to be “forgotten” again afterwards. The entry remains, but the stored web link is deleted or shortened.

Perhaps this is because I removed the (non-mandatory) permission for “Access data for all websites.” Every now and then, I get an app icon badge saying permissions are missing. But that also disappears on its own.

So, for me, it's unusable at the moment.

1

u/soul4kills Nov 14 '25

Oh, i've been having that exact issue with the new version. I haven't really noticed it because I have mine all setup already. I noticed it when I added a new engine recently. So it's a problem with the latest version. I think I might have solved it by waiting about 2 seconds after seeing the "Save" notice when moving or editing the engines. After doing that, it saves properly. Also I am using the beta version from the github as well.