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Firefox: Change Address Bar Search Provider
Posted by Mitch on Nov 29, 2007 under Firefox Tips | 34 CommentsWhen Firefox performs a search from the Address Bar, it queries the search engine string you have setup within Firefox. If it’s using Yahoo, you can switch to Google. Don’t like Google? Use Ask. Here’s how to switch which search engine Firefox searches when you use the address bar to search.
1. In Firefox type about:config in the address bar and press ENTER.
2. Locate and double-click the entry for keyword.URL
3. Set the value based on which search provider you would like to use for your address bar searches. Here are a few search strings you can use.
Yahoo: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=
Ask: http://www.ask.com/web?q=
Google: http://www.google.com/search?&q=
ChaCha: http://search.chacha.com/search/query?searchwithguide=0&query=
Hi,
Thanks for the tips, but they only work while I use the open firefox browser. As soon as I close it all the changes have been undone…
is there any way of saving the changes made in about:config?
Thanks
Thanks Man! I was stuck with crappy AOL Search for i don’t know how long.
While in about:config change these 2 settings as well, to match your chosen search engine.
browser.search.defaultenginename;Type in name of search engine here
browser.search.selectedEngine; Type in name of search engine here
That will probably help some of those little bugs that some experience.
Thanks! this is just what I needed! amazing post!
This helped me get back my address bar search results. I loaded facebook facemoods and it hyjacked my search results in both my browsers Firefox and IE.
After I uninstalled the program restarted the my PC it was still set to use their site search.
It is really sad because most people don’t even know that their search results are being hyjacked.
This post is very helpful for getting control of your address bar search results.
Thanks
ur the man. i searched for this everywhere and ur the only one whom i found on how to change the search thing. u rok.
thanx for that
this REALLY helped when nothing else did! thanks so much; i never did like AOL search
Thank man, you have just save from the grave XD
muchos gracious sir!
I’ve searched all over the web for this. CNET promises that none of their software contains spyware, but GOM (MP4 player) does and it installed my.freeze.com as the default search engine on my browser, as well as their add-on to Firefox. I could get everything off except Firefox’s default search engine kept going to my.freeze.com’s search engine, even after I uninstalled and reinstalled it.
You article solved the problem! You guys are great. I would donate if there was a link.
Thank you soooo much! Have been searching for this everywhere and this was the only method that worked. Thanks Martin as well!
@Martin:
That doesn’t work for me. It takes me back to my default DNS’s search engine (OpenDNS) instead of Google.
Here is the ACTUAL default search thing, taken straight from my other computer that was not affected, I prefer this one a lot more, it’s a nice balance between “I’m feeling lucky” and default search. This is the actual default in firefox:
http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=