[Bug-gnuzilla] Icecat, default DuckDuckGo engine and search region settings

[Habs]

re: Icecat 38.5.0 on Slackware 14.1 32bit

Hi everyone

This is about Icecat and DuckDuckGo search and the respecting of search
region (and I presume some other things not as yet noticed).

If I search from the address bar and/or search bar at the top of
Icecat, then the results returned do not seem to reflect the 'priority'
of the previously saved DDG search region setting. The search bar that
then appears in the results webpage, does not show the region flag.

In Mozilla Firefox, that issue does not exist and the search results do
appear to reflect the preferred search region settings and the search
bar at the top of the results displays the chosen regions flag.

Checking in 'about:config' on Icecat and Firefox, I could not discern
any obvious differences between the two that could be a cause.

What I have noticed is that Icecat, on pressing enter to search in the
address bar or the search bar, returns the results and the address bar
entry resembles: https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=.... - note the 'html'.
FF returns: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=

If I browse to the DDG page: https://duckduckgo.com  and type my search
in that search bar on the webpage (as opposed to the address/sear bar
search) then the results returned (and the appropriate flag) are
respecting the search region preference.

It appears that something is different when using the address and
search bars.

I am unable to affect this with various settings changes I have
[blindly] tried and cannot spot obvious differences between FF (where it
works as expected) and Icecat.

It did 'work' when I downloaded a different DDG search engine which was
DDG Blue - it seemed to me to be just a theme change, but it worked.
Yet again, I could not spot any differences which I could use in the
default engine.

My knowledge is limited, but I am enjoying Icecat as for one reason, it
appears on my machine to be much faster and performant than FF.

I am just looking for ideas to identify where I can affect this
behaviour [to respect the region and possibly other settings] as I tend
to use the address and search bars a lot.

If someone is aware of this or has any ideas, I'd like to hear about
them.

Thank you
Habs