Manage my default search engines in Firefox for Android

Revision Information
  • Revision id: 203111
  • Created:
  • Creator: Angela Lazar
  • Comment: Android article migration
  • Reviewed: Yes
  • Reviewed:
  • Reviewed by: anlazar
  • Is approved? Yes
  • Is current revision? No
  • Ready for localization: Yes
  • Readied for localization:
  • Readied for localization by: anlazar
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Firefox for Android gives you the ability to add, remove and change a default search engine. There are a variety of search engines available to choose from such as Google and Bing. You can also manually add other search engines and set them as your default.

Change the default search engine

  1. Tap the menu button android menu icon
    Menu button - Template:menupreview
  2. Tap Settings.
  3. Tap Search from the General section.
  4. Tap one of the radio buttons to select a search engine.

Edit search settings

  1. Tap the menu button android menu icon
    Menu button - Template:menupreview
  2. Tap Settings.
  3. Tap Search from the General section.
  4. Under the Address bar section toggle any of the following settings:
    • Show search shortcuts: controls if saved search shortcuts are displayed when typing in the address bar.
    • Show clipboard suggestions: this allows a "fill link from clipboard” option when searching.
    • Search browsing history: controls the ability to search browsing history from the search engine’s address bar.
    • Search bookmarks: controls the ability to search bookmarks from the search engine’s address bar.
    • Show search suggestions: controls whether search suggestions will display when entering URLs or keywords in the search engine’s address bar.
    • Show in private sessions: with this checkbox you can enable if search suggestions will display in the address bar in private browsing sessions.

Add a search engine

  1. Tap the menu button android menu icon
    Menu button - Template:menupreview
  2. Tap Settings.
  3. Tap Search from the General section.
  4. Tap Add search engine.
    A list of additional predefined search engines display.
  5. Tap the Other radio button to add a search engine that hasn’t been included in the predefined list and do the following:
    • Enter the search engine’s name in the NAME text field.
    • Enter a search string URL in the SEARCH STRING TO USE text field.
Please be sure to replace the query string with “%s”. For example, https://www.google.com/search?q=%s. If you don't know which search string to use for a particular search engine, you can access its website in a new tab, do any search and use the resulting URL as a reference. For example, if you go to ecosia.org and search for firefox, the resulting URL will be https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=firefox. Then the search string must be https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=%s, replacing the query with "%s". If the search string URL is flagged as invalid, an error message will display so that you can provide a valid URL.

The search engine is added to the predefined list of search engines in alphabetical order.

Remove a search engine

  1. Tap the menu button android menu icon
    Menu button - Template:menupreview
  2. Tap Settings.
  3. Tap Search from the General section.
  4. Tap the three dots to the right of the search engine.
  5. Tap Delete.

The search engine no longer displays in the predefined list. A confirmation displays at the bottom of the screen. You can tap UNDO if you would like to add the search engine back to the predefined list. This search engine will also now appear under Add search engine if you wish to add it back again later.