Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

default search engine not working

  • 6 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Jordy1998

more options

I normally have google as my default search engine but for some reason it loads up bing, I deleted it from my default search engine settings but nothing seems to work. I have no bing add-ons installed or anything that assoicated with bing. i looked into the program files and there isnt any other file located in the perf folder, I havent got any lavasoft or web companion software downloaded onto my computer, is there any other solution or fix that can help me?

I normally have google as my default search engine but for some reason it loads up bing, I deleted it from my default search engine settings but nothing seems to work. I have no bing add-ons installed or anything that assoicated with bing. i looked into the program files and there isnt any other file located in the perf folder, I havent got any lavasoft or web companion software downloaded onto my computer, is there any other solution or fix that can help me?

Chosen solution

Hi Jordy1998, sorry I didn't think of that before. The home page is a separate setting from the default search engine. Could you check the "Custom URLs" setting on the Options page? Try the steps in this article: How to set the home page.

It's also possible to inject a URL into the shortcut you use to start Firefox, but that is much less common.

Read this answer in context 👍 2

All Replies (6)

more options

I am an avid google user myself, and found that bing wouldnt answer my search quite right, so with firefox I was able to solve this problem myself, what type of firefox program are you using? Andriod firefox, firefox focus or firefox for windows?

more options

I'm using firefox for windows

more options

When does the hijacking occur? For example:

  • The default search engine is set to Google, you exit Firefox, and it is changed to Bing at the next startup
  • The default search engine is only changed when doing a system restart
  • The default search engine can change at any time
  • Even if the default search engine is set to Google, a Bing results page is delivered

Firefox has a built-in Bing search engine plugin (called Bing). Can you tell whether that one is getting "promoted" to default search engine, or is it an added-on Bing search engine?

more options

when I open firefox the bing homepage loads up even though i have google set as default and bare in mind that I deleted the bing search engine from the settings. I've tried restarting my pc with google set as default but it still loads up bing.

I don't have any bing plugins installed on my firefox and I can't tell if it's promoted as a default search engine.

  • Here's the screenshot of the homepage to see if you can tell if its being promoted because I dont know what I'm looking for.
more options

Chosen Solution

Hi Jordy1998, sorry I didn't think of that before. The home page is a separate setting from the default search engine. Could you check the "Custom URLs" setting on the Options page? Try the steps in this article: How to set the home page.

It's also possible to inject a URL into the shortcut you use to start Firefox, but that is much less common.

more options

Hi jscher2000, it worked now it loads up google instead of bing so, thank you for your help, much appreciated.