How determine what Seach Engine is being used?

Topic

New Reply

I use Fire Fox browser and Google is my default search engine.

On occasion I’ll use DuckDuckGo.

How do I confirm what search engine is actually being used?  If I go to Ask Woody via Google or via look up off the DuckDuckGo search listing, the Fire Fox URL address bar shows the same thing, https://askwoody.com.  So how do I tell for sure which search engine is delivering the website?

And if I am being serviced by DuckDuckGo, and I select another site from my Bookmarks, is the Bookmark delivered through DuckDuckGo or does it default back to Google?

Windows 10 Pro x64 v22H2 and Windows 7 Pro SP1 x64 (RIP)

Reply | Quote

Replies

Only you can tell how you got here.

Bookmarks are not serviced by any search engine.

Windows 11 Pro version 22H2 build 22621.2361 + Microsoft 365 + Edge

1 user thanked author for this post.

SueW

Reply | Quote

Search engines don’t ‘deliver’ a website, generally, they just link to it and AskWoody’s servers deliver it, regardless of where you came from, be it a search engine or a Bookmark.

However, when you click a link to go from one website to another, the URL you came from (called a referrer) is passed to the second website so they can see where you came from. You can view this in Firefox by right-clicking on the page and clicking ‘View Page Info’. It is listed as the ‘Referring URL’. If you visit a website by typing the url or via a Bookmark, there will not be a referrer.

Reply | Quote

Same thing with Waterfox, not surprisingly, as WF is a fork of FF. Now, also when right-clicking on the page, choosing instead “View Page Info” from the dropout menu, reveals lots and lots and lots and lots and  lots of surprising and probably also interesting information.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

Reply | Quote