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Can't reset default search engine

  • 5 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 24 views
  • Last reply by andy33

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My default search engine is Bing but I want Google. I opened up the search tab, and Google is listed as the default. Bing isn't even on the list. How do I make it work right?

My default search engine is Bing but I want Google. I opened up the search tab, and Google is listed as the default. Bing isn't even on the list. How do I make it work right?

Chosen solution

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions ("3-bar" menu button or Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem.

  • Switch to the DEFAULT theme: "3-bar" menu button or Tools > Add-ons > Appearance
  • Do NOT click the "Refresh Firefox" button on the Safe Mode start window

Try to delete the search.json file and possible search-metadata.json and search.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder to reset the search engines to the default.

You can use this button to go to the current Firefox profile folder:

Firefox will rebuild the search.json file from the default built-in search engines that come with Firefox and the searchplugins folder in the Firefox profile folder.

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All Replies (5)

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hello, could you go to the firefox menu ≡ > help ? > troubleshooting information, copy the contents of that page and paste them here into a reply on the forum? this might give us a clue what is going on...

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As requested: Name Firefox Version 45.0.1 Build ID 20160315153207 Update History Update Channel release User Agent Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/45.0 Profile Folder Enabled Plugins about:plugins Build Configuration about:buildconfig Memory Use about:memory Registered Service Workers about:serviceworkers Multiprocess Windows 0/1 (default: false) Safe Mode false

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hi, there should be more content on that page...

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Chosen Solution

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions ("3-bar" menu button or Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem.

  • Switch to the DEFAULT theme: "3-bar" menu button or Tools > Add-ons > Appearance
  • Do NOT click the "Refresh Firefox" button on the Safe Mode start window

Try to delete the search.json file and possible search-metadata.json and search.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder to reset the search engines to the default.

You can use this button to go to the current Firefox profile folder:

Firefox will rebuild the search.json file from the default built-in search engines that come with Firefox and the searchplugins folder in the Firefox profile folder.

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It turns out that I had a different problem. Apparently the Bing search page became my default start page. That was an easy fix. Thanks for the responses.