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How can I change the default home page to another search provider while keeping the quick links at the bottom of the page?

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I would like to use Ixquick or Startpage.com as my home page, but I want to keep the quick links on the bottom of the page, as it is with the default home page. How can I do this?

I would like to use Ixquick or Startpage.com as my home page, but I want to keep the quick links on the bottom of the page, as it is with the default home page. How can I do this?

All Replies (4)

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You can redirect the search box to another search site, but it would be difficult to mash up the built-in buttons with a page on a website because the buttons require special privileges that websites do not have.

There might be an add-on to make it easier to change the search engine but, if not, you can edit a database entry from its default value to a new value. This is a bit involved so I won't describe it unless you're interested.

DEFAULT: {"name":"Google","searchUrl":"https://www.google.com/search?q=_searchTerms_&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a"}

NEW: {"name":"StartPage","searchUrl":"https://startpage.com/do/search?q=_searchTerms_"}

(Tested and seems to work.)

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Note that to make it look better you would also have to set a specific icon for that search engine.

See this for an example about Bing:

  • [/questions/933343] How can I change the "about:home" homepage's search engine and logo to Bing?
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If I really did not want to know, I would not have gone through all of the trouble of searching Firefox forums for answers, and then posting the question - if I really didn't want to know.

You don't say where this data base is, so I tried looking in about:config for "name"."Google"."searchUrl", but that doesn't exist. Those urls your example provides only lead to search results of the term "search terms", which leads me to believe that you are just trolling me.

Seriously, if you didn't want to explain the answer because you didn't think I would be interested, why did you post a reply?

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Hi DeadlyOats, I wasn't sure what change you wanted to make and it was quite late to run through all these steps and confirm every single one if you had something different in mind.

I think cor-el has linked to a post with a more straightforward method than mine, but I'll list my method below anyway.


(0) Make a backup of your active settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder. See Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles. (You can copy your entire Firefox profile folder somewhere outside of the Mozilla folder.)

(1) Install the SQLite Manager extension from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sqlite-manager/ and restart Firefox

(2) Start up SQLite Manager from the Tools menu. This will display a new window.

(3) On the toolbar, click the (Select Profile Database) drop-down and choose chromeappsstore.sqlite and then click Go.

(4) In the left pane, under Tables, click webappsstore2

(5) In the right pane, click the Browse & Search tab to display a table of data.

(6) In the key column, look for search-engine and double-click it to pop up an editing dialog.

(7) Click the icon to the right of the value to expand the editing area. Replace this value with the one I posted earlier and click OK.

(8) Reload about:home and test. Success?

(9) Close the SQLite Manager window.

Please note that some SQLite databases you can edit with this extension contain irreplaceable data (such as history and passwords), while others are easily regenerated to return to defaults. If in doubt, always make a backup.