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According to the documentation of keyword searches, you can specify %S instead of %s in a bookmark to prevent escaping. However, this is not working for me: trying to make a quick search for Wayback Machine always results in escaped URLs being passed, which give an error from the Internet Archive.

Do I understand the documentation correctly? Does this work?

Sam Brightman
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1 Answers1

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It's currently working in Firefox 70.

archgood  https://web.archive.org/web/*/%S
archbad  https://web.archive.org/web/*/%s
archgood https://www.google.com/  https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.google.com/
archbad https://www.google.com/  https://web.archive.org/web/*/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

You probably have the wrong URL if you created the search by right clicking the search box and selecting "Add a Keyword for this Search". Firefox records the form's submission URL, but the Wayback Machine intercepts/cancels form submission and redirects to another location with JavaScript instead.

Note that the capital %S only works when you add the search engine via the bookmark editor like this:

Adding it on the settings page only allows you specify a lowercase %s.

Saaru Lindestøkke
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Billy
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  • Using a capital `%S` no longer works, it is not replaced by the query. Would you know o a new method? – Saaru Lindestøkke Jul 30 '23 at 08:17
  • @SaaruLindestøkke Nope, but it's still working for me in 115.0.3. What version are you on? – Billy Jul 30 '23 at 10:07
  • I'm also on 115.0.3 on Mac OS, but when I add a capital `%S` as a placeholder for the wayback machine, I get a 400 Bad Request when I use it. [These are my settings in Firefox](https://i.imgur.com/Pb6Lzx3.png) and [this is what I get](https://i.imgur.com/X3UNrLY.png) when I try to use it. – Saaru Lindestøkke Jul 30 '23 at 16:03
  • @SaaruLindestøkke This only works with bookmark keywords. You need to create a bookmark [like this](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FwQqx.png). The newer search engines feature doesn't have a way to prevent the query from being escaped. The bookmark keyword feature will probably be removed eventually in favor of search engines. – Billy Jul 31 '23 at 03:13
  • Thanks for the clarification! I thought these were different interfaces to reach the same thing, but apparently not. – Saaru Lindestøkke Jul 31 '23 at 09:00