Firefox 128.03 No way to get rid of google as search engine
Is Firefox now a complete tool of Google ? about:preferences#search there is no way to delete google as search engine I have startpage and duckduckgo as alternative options listed and I can remove them, but google cannot be removed as the REMOVE button is not highlighted in case of Google. Why do you hardcode Google as the default browser for the URL bar ?
From the attached image you can see that the "Remove Tab" is inactive specifically for google. I tried absolutely all advice on the net, and nothing works. Firefox now seemingly FORCES us to use google. This behavior was not present in the previous firefox version I used. It immediately happened after update to 128.0.3 (64-bit).
Is google now hardcoded into firefox ? If so it is time for a hard fork in the firefox code. Hopefully it is not needed.
In addition Google was ruled to be a Monopoly today by a federal judge,
So it would be better for Mozilla/Firefox to not continue the monopoly and become an enabling party in monopoly lawsuits.
פתרון נבחר
Solution Using Firefox-nightly solved all the problems.
Thanks to all for responding.
Read this answer in context 👍 0כל התגובות (7)
Hmm, what happened to DuckDuckGo?
Could I ask you to test something:
(1) Restore the built-in search engines using the bottom left button
(2) Change your default to something other than Google using the setting at the top of the panel.
(3) Back in the shortcuts box, try removing Google first. See if you can remove all the other built-in ones other than DuckDuckGo.
(My suspicion is that you can remove anything you want but not (A) the current default or (B) the last one that's built in.)
Thank you for the reply. Tried it, doesnt work. I am still stuck with totalitarian oligarch google. I am using linux, so some of your instructions seems to be a bit different. Whatever I do, Google is the browser when typing something into the URL bar trying your suggestion.
The way I solved it was to try the Firefox NIGHTLY developers version.
Using the same user profile for both.
Clearly there is some gags and other totalitarian garbish added once the developers version gets out of beta and becomes firefox. There is no other explanation.
Obviously when a lot of restrictions and special interests are to be added to firefox it will be added after the developers Beta, else it will get in the way of development.
Really interesting.
Nightly solved all my problems, and I rather use that without most of the gags/throttles/peeps/. It is not really worth it to continue with the mainstream firefox non-nightly version.
I was able to remove google after restoring defaults, choosing DDG, and then removed google. see screenshot
Operating System: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20240805
KDE Plasma Version: 6.1.3
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.4.0
Qt Version: 6.7.2
Kernel Version: 6.10.2-1-default (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 5825U with Radeon Graphics
Memory: 62.1 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon Graphics
Manufacturer: HP
Product Name: HP ProBook 455 15.6 inch G9 Notebook PC
zimbodel said
Nightly solved all my problems, and I rather use that without most of the gags/throttles/peeps/. It is not really worth it to continue with the mainstream firefox non-nightly version.
The Nightly development channel is more for testers and devs in mind and it gets checkins and updates twice a day so things can be a work in progress until finished, fixed or reverted.
That was the first thing I tried. It was the first web wisdom I found. Google stays, and remove button disabled for google, makes no difference No resolution.
I am not interested in firefox-release anymore it is malicious. As I reported Firefox Nightly works perfectly without all these problems on the SAME profile with no changes.
פתרון נבחר
Solution Using Firefox-nightly solved all the problems.
Thanks to all for responding.
It still works normally for me in Firefox 129.0 on Windows (installed directly from Mozilla). Maybe there is something new in the build you were using.