DuckDuckGo, Firefox And Containers

Introduction

I make a lot of use of Firefox containers in my daily workflow via two extensions:

• Multi-Account Containers. This allows users to separate different online identities into colour-coded tabs, keeping cookies and data isolated for each account. This helps manage multiple accounts, such as work and personal, without needing to switch browsers.
• Temporary Containers. This allows users to open tabs in disposable containers, isolating data like cookies and storage for enhanced privacy. These containers are automatically deleted after use, helping to prevent tracking across different websites.

In particular, I use it to open all my DuckDuckGo searches in a specific container. It's not because DuckDuckGo is likely to be tracking me, but just to be doubly sure they can't.

I have DuckDuckGo set as my default search engine. Every time I open a new tab I can type a search query and the results are shown in a specific container. When I follow a search link it's opened in a temporary container which is deleted when I close the tab: ideal for preventing the build up of cookies and site data.

Until recently, that is.

Problem #1 - empty screen & settings

Yesterday I found that any search results page was almost blank; just a search box at the top. After much faffing around I traced the issue to the container: the redirection wasn't working. Whilst investigating I also discovered that my DuckDuckGo settings weren't being retained as I thought they were.

Solution #1

After exploring a few approaches ¹, I set up a new (Search) container just for DuckDuckGo. I then used the "Always open this site in" feature to create a rule to redirect all duckduckgo.com urls to the new container.

Then I whitelisted the DuckDuckGo cookies for the new container using Cookie AutoDelete. This extension automatically deletes all unwanted cookies and I have to manually whitelist all useful cookies.

This restored my original workflow. Almost.

Problem #2 - excessive prompts

Solution #1 raised a new issue. Unlike before, when I entered a search term from a new tab page I was prompted to either remember the full url or open it in the Search container. I certainly didn't want to save every search I made (imagine the size of the list) and the prompt added another, and unwanted, step.

Solution #2

After a lot of a lot more exploring, I eventually found the cause of problem #2 thanks to perplexty.ai:

Firefox Multi-Account Containers assigns containers primarily by domain, but it often prompts you when a URL has extra parameters, uses subdomains, or is redirected, even if you’ve already set the main domain (like duckduckgo.com) to always open in a specific container. This is a known limitation: the built-in extension only matches the base domain, not the full URL or all possible URL patterns, and sometimes prompts for confirmation on URLs with parameters or after redirects.

The solution was to install the Containerise extension which does not have the limitations of the Multi-Account Containers extension. I used this rule:

  !*.duckduckgo.com, Search

to direct all searches to the Search container which worked perfectly.

Closing remarks

So after a lot of messing about, I ended back where I started with my search workflow fully restored. In fact I'm in a better position. My DuckDuckGo settings are now permanently in place; something I'm not sure was the case before.

There remains two unanswered questions:

• Why did it stop working in the first place.
• Why didn't I get the prompts (problem #2) before.

It doesn't feel right posting a solution without identifying the cause, but I don't think I'll ever know. It looks like it's a common problem without a specific cause. The nearest I can get is some extension update changed something or I wasn't doing what I thought I was doing! If I ever find out the real reason I'll add a comment.

Notes

1. For the record, using the DuckDuckGo bookmarklet didn't work. I couldn't find a way to set it to be the default search engine. ↩