Can I set Firefox start page with a different search engine, not Google?
I am removing all things "Google" from my computer. I want the Firefox Start Page, because I can get to options, add-ons, etc. and I don't want to lose that.
Chosen solution
by cor-elEasiest is to select the preferred search engine in the search bar on the Navigation Toolbar to see the name of that search engine in the browser.search.selectedEngine pref and copy its value to the browser.search.defaultenginename pref.
Firefox should use that search engine on the about:home page after a close and restart of Firefox.
If not then you may have an extension that is overriding this, especially if the pref changes.
Read this answer in context 1Helpful replies
Nope. When I restarted Firefox, the same start page is there with Google right underneath the Firefox logo.
Go to answer 1I can verify that the Scratchpad scripts for changing the Search Container engine don't work in 18.0.1 any longer. Fine in Firefox 17.0.1 and earlier versions.
Go to answer 1Additional System Details
Installed Plug-ins
- Shockwave Flash 11.5 r502
- Adobe PDF Plug-In For Firefox and Netscape 10.1.5
- The QuickTime Plugin allows you to view a wide variety of multimedia content in Web pages. For more information, visit the QuickTime Web site.
- iTunes Detector Plug-in
- Google Talk Plugin Video Accelerator version:0.1.44.23
- Version 3.10.2.10212
- Amazon MP3 Downloader Plugin 1.0.17
- NPRuntime Script Plug-in Library for Java(TM) Deploy
- Google Update
- Adobe Shockwave for Director Netscape plug-in, version 11.6.7.637
- HP Product Detection Plugin
- HP Active Check Plugin
- GEPlugin
- 5.1.10411.0
- Adobe Shockwave for Director Netscape plug-in, version 11.5.9.620
- NPWLPG
- np-mswmp
Application
- User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:19.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/19.0
More Information
Could you try this solution from last July and see whether it still works: How can I change the "about:home" homepage's search engine and logo to Bing?
Helpful Reply
Nope. When I restarted Firefox, the same start page is there with Google right underneath the Firefox logo.
Helpful Reply
I can verify that the Scratchpad scripts for changing the Search Container engine don't work in 18.0.1 any longer. Fine in Firefox 17.0.1 and earlier versions.
Modified by the-edmeister
Question owner
Thank you the-edmeister. Hopefully this can be changed. Until then I guess I'll just shut down the Firefox start page on my beast.
You can now set the search engine on the about:home page to an installed search engine via the browser.search.defaultenginename pref on the about:config page.
See:
- [/questions/946393] How do I change the search engine for about:home in Firefox 18?
Question owner
cor-el, I still have the google logo and search input box on the page. Thank you for your help.
Chosen Solution
Easiest is to select the preferred search engine in the search bar on the Navigation Toolbar to see the name of that search engine in the browser.search.selectedEngine pref and copy its value to the browser.search.defaultenginename pref.
Firefox should use that search engine on the about:home page after a close and restart of Firefox.
If not then you may have an extension that is overriding this, especially if the pref changes.