Firefox open a new tab instead of a new window when using powertoys run web search plugin

[eskoONE]

Description of the new feature / enhancement

currently the new powertoys run plugin opens a new window when using the web search plugin. it would be nice if it opened a new tab instead. perhaps a toggle option would be nice.

Scenario when this would be used?

for me it makes sense using the currently open web browser to open a new tab instead of opening another window to manage.

[franky920920]

Which browser are you using? I am using Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome and they do both open the page in a new tab?

[crutkas]

@eskoone for me it opened a new tab (on edge). Could this maybe be a setting inside your browser?

[rcmaehl]

I can confirm it opens a new tab on my end as well

[RobLOlson]

I'm running Firefox 95.0.2 and web-search opens a new window (however URI handler opens a new tab).

[franky920920]

That's wired. Search plugin and URI plugin basically use the same thing. 😕

[greengiraffe]

I can reproduce the issue with Firefox set as the Windows 10 default browser:

• With the Web Search plugin a new Firefox window is opened each time
• With the URI plugin a new Firefox tab is opened

When I change the default browser to Chrome or Edge and disable/re-enable PowerToys Run[^1], it does work as intended and opens all searches in new tabs.

So the issue might be related to Firefox. Firefox is set to prefer opening tabs by the way.

[^1]: The Web Search plugin doesn't pickup the default browser switch by itself whereas the URI plugin does.

[eskoONE]

im on win 11 and am using firefox as well.

is this really a firefox bug though? seems rather odd to me that it behaves like this when any other program opening a link is opening a new tab.

edit: i tried windows terminal links and thunderbird to open urls. it behaves as expected and opens a new tab.

[CombeeMike]

I'm seeing the same (unwanted) behavior on Win 10 with Firefox 96.0.2. PT run web search plugin opens results in new FF window instead of new tab whereas clicking on links in other applications etc. opens them in a new tab of the already open FF instance (at least the applications I've tried...).

[franky920920]

#Tracking-External:https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1752684

[franky920920]

#Tracking-External:https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1667577 Wondering if Firefox will fix this. 😕

[Aaron-Junker]

@crutkas Anything you could do to push on this at mozilla?

[crutkas]

they rank it as a P5 and has a single upvote. We are the 1st dup and it took 1 year to do that so i don't know how high up they'd rank this based on those two factors.

[CombeeMike]

For everyone who doesn't know (like me): P5 means officially Will not fix, but will accept a patch 😢 (see FF priority definitions)

Maybe a few more votes can help 🤷‍♂️

[franky920920]

So I think P5 is #help wanted for them.

[Lyptik]

Hey guys I used to use wox (on which power toys run is based on) with firefox and it used to open a search in a new tab. This was less than one month ago before I switched to power toys run. And I see this firefox bug is opened from more than 1 year. This means that there is a probably a workaround that could be done without changing firefox.

I think that there is two ways of invoking a search :

• Invoking the search external interface of the browser (which might not work with firefox in a tab apparently)
• Invoking the browser with a specific URL with a search query (this most certainly works in a tab with firefox, but you have to specify the URL search query, hence the search engine)

Maybe this would be a nice feature request where we can actually specifiy a search URL query to be sent with our default browser. This would add a very nice feature + fix the current problem for firefox.

[crutkas]

If memory serves, they do a direct site query where we do a generic one. Each has pros and cons.

[whysgai]

If there are pros to the direct site query (beyond getting FireFox to work), maybe that could be a toggle for that specific Run plugin? The UI could be similar to the additional settings available to the TimeZone plugin.

[fhtdtdj]

Any update?

[CombeeMike]

Since chances are very low that this will be fixed in Firefox any time soon, I'd really appreciate an option to use a "direct site query" instead of the generic one.

The web search plugin is unfortunately completely useless for me in the current state since Firefox is my main browser and I "can't live" with it opening new windows all the time.

I could even live with a "hidden setting" with 2 parameters (e.g. Use direct site search: yes/no & Direct search URL: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%1) without UI which needs to be activated in some JSON/config file, the registry or whatever if you don't want to clutter the settings UI with features that only a minority actually uses 🤷‍♂️

[Fred-Vatin]

For everyone who doesn't know (like me): P5 means officially Will not fix, but will accept a patch 😢 (see FF priority definitions)

Maybe a few more votes can help 🤷‍♂️

I really hate their bug tracker. I wish they move to github but I’m not sure it would have changed a lot since MS are in github and not able to fix 7 years old bugs or basic feature requests in VS Code. And now they have a bot that automatically close bugs if nobody reacted or confirmed.

[hardcodet]

Weird, my good ole' launchy worked with FF without complaints. Also now ran into this when trying our PT on a new Win 11 install.

[radutomy]

This bug is so annoying!

[bahua]

Still an issue with Windows 10(22H2) on both firefox and firefox developer edition. What is the status for integrating CombeeMike's proposed solution?

[Eight-P]

In addition to opening a new Firefox window, for me, it also seemingly tries to open http://0.0.0.1/ in the existing window. Also, I'd just like to bumb this issue.

[glenncarr]

In addition to opening a new Firefox window, for me, it also seemingly tries to open http://0.0.0.1/ in the existing window. Also, I'd just like to bump this issue.

Same issue here

[ReylordDev]

I've identified a temporary fix for Firefox opening http://0.0.0.1/ in the existing window when using the WebSearch Plugin. The issue seems to be caused on Firefox's side when using the -url command line argument. To fix the issue, I edited the appropriate registry entry:

1. In the Registry Editor, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Associations\UrlAssociations\http\UserChoice to identify the default browser program id (Should be something like "FirefoxURL-{UUID}").
2. Then go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\FirefoxURL-{that previous UUID}\shell\open\command. The current value should be "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -osint -url "%1"
3. Replace that value with "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" "%1".
4. Restart PowerToys.

Interestingly, this does not work when keeping the -osint argument, yet the issue remains when removing -osint but keeping the -url argument.

[fkaelberer]

In addition to opening a new Firefox window, for me, it also seemingly tries to open http://0.0.0.1/ in the existing window. Also, I'd just like to bumb this issue.

Looks like the http://0.0.0.1/ issue will be fixed in the upcoming Firefox 125.0.3: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1892612#c5