How to remove `t=canonical` from Firefox browser searches made on DuckDuckGo?
Solution 1
&t=
Through partnerships with developers and companies, DuckDuckGo has been integrated into many applications. In these partnerships, a portion of DuckDuckGo's advertising revenue is sometimes shared back. To assign advertising revenue and collect anonymous aggregate usage information, developers add a unique "&t=" parameter to searches made through their applications.
If you want to remove it, edit the file:
/usr/lib/firefox/distribution/searchplugins/locale/*language-here*
Edit all the languages just to be sure.
Edit for 20.04
- Open Firefox, navigate to Preferences --> Search, and remove the per-installed DuckDuckGo search engine
- Download the search engine new from the Firefox Add-ons directory. Select this as the default search engine in the preferences The string, &t=canonícal, ceased to insert itself into the searches via the address bar thereafter. With help from Komalleana Byzantis
Below are before and after pictures:
Source:DuckDuckGo Forums
Solution 2
Read the output from apt-cache show xul-ext-ubufox
. Here's a partial quote:
Package: xul-ext-ubufox
Priority: optional
Section: web
Installed-Size: 378
Maintainer: Ubuntu Mozilla Team <[email protected]>
Architecture: all
Source: ubufox
Version: 2.8-0ubuntu1
Replaces: ubufox (<< 0.9~rc2-0ubuntu3)
Provides: firefox-ubufox, ubufox
Depends: aptdaemon, libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.26)
Recommends: firefox (>= 9.0)
...
Description-en: Ubuntu-specific configuration defaults and apt support for Firefox
Adds Ubuntu-specific modifications to Firefox.
.
Integrates the browser with Ubuntu to:
* Enable searching for missing plugins from Ubuntu software catalog
* Add the following options to the Help menu
- Get help on-line
- Help translating Firefox
- Ubuntu Release Notes
* Set homepage to Ubuntu Start Page
* Display a restart notification after upgrading Firefox
* Add ask.com to the search engines.
.
You can uninstall this if you prefer to use a pristine Firefox install.
Enhances: firefox
Homepage: https://launchpad.net/ubufox
Note the third-last line.
As for why, Canonical may earn some revenue but that's just speculation.
Solution 3
OK, this is how I did it successfully.
-
Purged Firefox with
sudo apt-get purge firefox
and installed it from Mozilla's website in
/opt/firefox
. -
Created a symbollic link by
sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox
-
Replaced the newly created
something.release
folder in~/.mozilla/firefox
with the one from my existing old profile making sure the name is exactly the same (rename the old release folder as the new one and then delete the latter). -
Created a new application shortcut.
All my previous user information and settings are preserved.
Solution 4
I am using Firefox 60.0.1 on Xubuntu 16.04.4 (64-bit). I had the same problem you face. The chosen answer provided by Mitch did not work for me. Instead, I resolved the issue by following this procedure:
- Open Firefox, navigate to Preferences -> Search, and remove the pre-installed DuckDuckGo search engine
- Download the search engine anew from the Firefox Add-ons directory; it can be found here
- Select this as the default search engine in the preferences
The string, &t=canonical
, ceased to insert itself into my searches via the address bar thereafter.
I cannot tell you why the behaviour is there in the first place.
Solution 5
The above answers not working on a new versions of firefox. Because of that I recommend downloading firefox from official website and making a symlink
sudo ln -s /path_to_downloaded_firefox_executable_file /usr/bin/firefox
Related videos on Youtube
Daniel
Updated on September 18, 2022Comments
-
Daniel over 1 year
In Ubuntu 14.04, when I do a search in Firefox using either the address bar or the search bar, the system always adds
t=canonical
to my searches. So the full string becomes:https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cat+cooking+salmon&t=canonical
.However, if I perform the same search by going directly to the search engine, i.e. typing the search engine name and doing the search from the presented search box, this does not happen. In this case the string is:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cat+cooking+salmon
.How do I stop Ubuntu/Firefox from adding
t=canonical
to my search queries? And, why is this behavior there in the first place?-
jrg about 9 yearsBut wait! It gets better! This is a screenshot taken in Chrome, on a Mac. i.imgur.com/WbW2d1M.png
-
jrg about 9 yearsSo it gets infested across the entire ecosystem, and follows it from browser to browser, and platform to platform.
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Oli about 9 yearsNote that even if you remove this from the querystring, your browser is still broadcasting "Ubuntu" in the user-agent string.
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lnostdal almost 8 yearsIt is so hard to make money in "pure" Open Source. Why not support Ubuntu Linux in this small way?
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Daniel almost 8 years@lnostdal: "It is so hard to make money in "pure" Open Source. Why not support Ubuntu Linux in this small way?" --- Privacy, although I was more interested in learning the how/why.
-
chefarov almost 4 years@Oli Just a note, Firefox does NOT do that anymore, maybe chrome does. FF (Ubuntu) User-Agent Header:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/68.0
-
Oli almost 4 years@chefarov Fairly certain you're either on Windows or you've got something like User Agent Switcher. My Firefox does still broadcast that I'm using Ubuntu and Linux.
-
-
Daniel over 9 yearsAfter commenting the line with
<!--<Param name="t" value="canonical"/>-->
and restarting Firefox thet=canonical
no longer shows up. Also thumbs up for the link to DDG forums. -
Daniel about 9 yearsAfter an update the files were back with their original content so I had to repeat these steps.
-
asgs over 6 yearsso it's the Canonical (Ubuntu parent) getting the revenue and not FF which initiated the search in the first place?
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N0rbert almost 4 yearsDoes not work on 20.04 LTS with Firefox 75+.
-
N0rbert almost 4 yearsIt is not actual for 20.04 LTS - here this package really contains nothing useful as XUL was removed.
-
Mitch almost 4 years@N0rbert see my edit on how to do it on 20.04.
-
chefarov almost 4 yearsNeither of the above is working in
20.04
,FF 77
. If you go togoogle.com
orduckduckgo.com
and search in to the search bar, theclient=ubuntu
is not included, but If you search directly in the address bar then it's included.