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How to keep Google as the search engine on Firefox startpage, no matter what search engine is in the upper-right drop-box?

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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When I change the search engine in the upper-right search-box (to let's say Wikipedia), the search engine in the middle of the Firefox home-page changes accordingly. I don't want this to happen (I want that to pin to Google). How to do it?

When I change the search engine in the upper-right search-box (to let's say Wikipedia), the search engine in the middle of the Firefox home-page changes accordingly. I don't want this to happen (I want that to pin to Google). How to do it?

Chosen solution

Current Firefox versions use the search engine that is selected in the search bar (click the search engine icon to open the drop down list) on the Navigation Toolbar for searching via the location bar and for the search engine on the about:home page.

If you want to use different search engines then you can install the Keyword Search extension to specify with search engine to use for the location bar and which search engine to use for the about:home page via the Options/Preferences windows of this extension, accessible via the about:addons page (Firefox > Add-ons).

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Change the about:home search engine back to Google.

Firefox button > Web Developer -> Scratchpad - copy and paste this script into Scratchpad > then hit Execute > Run


javascript:{localStorage["search-engine"]="{\"name\":\"Google\",\"searchUrl\":\"http://www.google.com/search?q=_searchTerms_&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a\"}";void(0);}

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Still the search provider changes in the center of Firefox homepage when changing it in the upper-right search drop-box :(

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Chosen Solution

Current Firefox versions use the search engine that is selected in the search bar (click the search engine icon to open the drop down list) on the Navigation Toolbar for searching via the location bar and for the search engine on the about:home page.

If you want to use different search engines then you can install the Keyword Search extension to specify with search engine to use for the location bar and which search engine to use for the about:home page via the Options/Preferences windows of this extension, accessible via the about:addons page (Firefox > Add-ons).