To fix the default search engine used at the Location Bar, change the value of keyword.URL in about:config to one of the values shown in Location Bar search at MozillaZine.

• Google Search (Google search results page)
  http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=

1. type in about:config into the location bar (in a new tab)
2. if the warning message nonsense comes up the box before dismissing the dialog message
3. filter on keyword
4. right-click on keyword.URL and choose "modify" then paste in the Google search engine string of your choice.
5. filter on defaulturl
6. right-click on browser.search.defaulturl (if it exists)and again choose "modify" then paste in the Google search engine string of your choice.
7. filter on ytff
8. right-click on yahoo.ytff.search.popup_src (if it exists) and again choose "modify" then paste in the Google search engine string of your choice, if adventurous might see if "reset" would remove and see if gone in next session (well not for those keeping the extension).

Yahtzee!! it worked. thank you very much.

Ken

Hi Ken would you mark the answer as having solved the question, perhaps wait until you've restarted Firefox 2 or 3 times, to make sure something else is not trying to change it on you. Thanks for the feedback.