Ask HN: A way to make a search link without choosing the search engine?

4 points by gregoriol 6y ago ↗ HN

I was making a link on a website to send the user to a search on a search engine. The first basic idea would be to make a link to "https://www.google.com/search?q=Paris,+France".

But how could we make a link that doesn't choose the search engine for the user, and lets the user choose which one they prefer? Is there a service that does this? or even better something that doesn't require any third-party, maybe some javascript library?

edit: The same could be applied to maps, like Wikipedia's external map chooser: a link that would let the user choose which map service they would like to use instead of sending them to one by default.

1 comment

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nreece 6y ago ↗

There doesn't seem to be any native option to perform search in the default search engine provider set in the browser.

There used to be a external.IsSearchProviderInstalled native JavaScript method[1], but it was deprecated by browsers, most likely to prevent them detecting and recommending one search provider over the other.

Simplest workaround will be to show a dropdown select list or page modal with search engine options, for the user to be able to select their choice.

[1] http://help.dottoro.com/ljfslnsp.php