While you may be accustomed to browsing to a search engine’s page directly to search for something (such as google.com or bing.com) many modern Web browsers will also let you search for something by simply typing the search term into the address bar at the top of the field.
But you may find that Firefox is performing these searches in a search engine that you don’t like using, so you want to switch this behavior so that it used your preferred search engine. Our tutorial below will show you where to locate and change the Firefox default search engine.
How to Change the Default Search Engine in Firefox
The steps in this article will show you how to select a different search engine than the one that is currently being used in Firefox. This will affect searches that you initiate from the address bar at the top of the window. This will not affect the search engine used in any other Web browsers. You will also be able to use any search engine that you want by navigating to that search engine’s home page and typing your search term into the field on that page, rather than the address bar.
Step 1: Open the Firefox browser.
Step 2: Click the Open menu button at the top-right of the window.
Step 3: Choose the Options item from the menu.
Step 4: Select the Search tab at the left side of the window.
Step 5: Click the dropdown menu under Default search engine, then select the option that you would like to use.
There are a number of different settings and options that you can change to improve your experience with Firefox. For example, find out how to enable automatic updates in Firefox if you would prefer to let the browser take care of it, rather than requiring you to manually allow the updates to occur.
Kermit Matthews is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with more than a decade of experience writing technology guides. He has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Computer Science and has spent much of his professional career in IT management.
He specializes in writing content about iPhones, Android devices, Microsoft Office and many other popular applications and devices.
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