Huh no? I've just added it in settings. No custom extension needed. I'm pretty extension-averse because I already need so many :) Ublock, Sponsorblock, Dark Reader, password manager, consent-o-matic, sideberry I really can't do without.
But I've always been able to do it. All I had to do was to simply visit my SearXNG instance once, then it would pick it up and put it in the list of search engines (OpenSearch API) and then I could just set it as default.
One thing I could not do was edit search engines (e.g. the URL they visit). I still can't do that in fact but maybe that's new?
If you check the bugzilla thread in the OP, this is specifically about adding manual search engines outside of automatic OpenSearch support.
Theres a panel where you fill out the name, search URL, suggestion URL, and search keyword yourself, under settings. You can add whatever you like, even if its not OpenSearch compatible, just like you already could on Chrome (for the better part of a decade, mind you)
If a dev is lazy and doesnt incorporate OpenSearch functionality you can homebrew it easily this way.
I personally use it quite often to restrict searches for engines that otherwise only support OpenSearch for their entire catalog.
For example, I have seperate `@ma` for manga and `@an` for anime via MAL, where by default (IIRC) they only have the combined "search everything" advertised through OpenSearch.
I also use it to search individual boards on foolfuuka archive sites, as the default OpenSearch advertisement suffers the same issue as MAL where it's only for searching every board on the site at once.
I'm sure I have even more examples on my browser, I actually use it all the time so I'm glad this is getting mainlined rather than nixed. I use Librewolf, so they already had this enabled by tweaking the corresponding about:config setting themselves.
Yeah to be honest I read the bugzilla thread but I didn't find it very clear. It's really meant for the in-crowd. Which makes sense for a bugtracker but not for a HN article.
And yes good point. I can also imagine using it for stuff that's not strictly a search engine as such.
But I've always been able to do it. All I had to do was to simply visit my SearXNG instance once, then it would pick it up and put it in the list of search engines (OpenSearch API) and then I could just set it as default.
One thing I could not do was edit search engines (e.g. the URL they visit). I still can't do that in fact but maybe that's new?