Where did you install Firefox from? Help Mozilla uncover 3rd party websites that offer problematic Firefox installation by taking part in our campaign. There will be swag, and you'll be featured in our blog if you manage to report at least 10 valid reports!

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How do I change my defult search engine to google?

more options

When i type something in the url box(normal url's work fine) it does an AOL search, how do i change it to a google search?

When i type something in the url box(normal url's work fine) it does an AOL search, how do i change it to a google search?

All Replies (5)

more options

You need to reset the keyword.url preference:

  1. Open Firefox.
  2. Type about:config into the address bar.
  3. You may see a warning message. Press the I'll be careful, I promise! button to continue.
  4. Type keyword.url into the Filter textbox.
  5. Right click the item that appears and select Reset.

It should now show a value with a Google URL.

more options

while that did change it from AOL search, it didn't make it a google search

more options

What search did that result in?

Could you please do the following:

  1. Type about:config into the address bar.
  2. You may see a warning message. Press the I'll be careful, I promise! button to continue.
  3. Type keyword.url into the Filter textbox.
  4. Right click the item that appears and select Copy Value
  5. Return to this topic and right click in the message textarea, and choose Paste.

The Google value should be http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=

You could try to use the Modify option in about:config and set it to the URL above.

more options

i did that, and its the same thing you posted, it comes up as: http://guide.opendns.com/?url=

and what i have in there just to be certain: and http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=

more options

Ah, OK.

That is a "feature" of OpenDNS. What is normally supposed to happen is that Firefox sees what you've typed is not a web site, and goes to the keyword search.

But because you've got OpenDNS as your DNS server, it is telling Firefox it has a website for your keyword searches, giving you that page. Its (one of the ways) how OpenDNS is funded.

To get your keyword searches back, you'll have to change DNS servers. Try resetting them to "automatically obtain" following instructions here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/change-tcp-ip-settings

I used to use OpenDNS and ran into the same issue, now I use Google Public DNS.