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?

Nope. When I restarted Firefox, the same start page is there with Google right underneath the Firefox logo.

Thank you though for your help, jscher2000!!

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.

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?

• http://mycroft.mozdev.org/search-engines.html
• http://mycroft.mozdev.org/google-search-plugins.html

cor-el, I still have the google logo and search input box on the page. Thank you for your help.

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.

Thank you cor-el, I will try as you suggest.