How to Change the Default Search Engine in Firefox

You can start a search in Firefox by simply typing your search term into the address bar and pressing Enter.

But you may find that the search is being performed on a search engine that you don't want to use.

Our tutorial below will show you how to change the default Firefox search engine to another option.

How to use a different default search engine in Firefox

Open Firefox.
Click the button with three lines.
Select "Settings".
Select the Search tab.
Click the "Default search engine" drop-down list and select the one you want.

Our guide continues below with more information on how to change the default search engine in Firefox, including images of the steps.

Most modern browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, or Internet Explorer provide methods for searching the web without actually going to the search engine's home page.

However, each of these browsers will use the default search engine settings to determine which search engine is being used for your query.

A recent update to Firefox changed the settings in this browser so Yahoo is the default. However, this is something you can change.

So if you decide you don't like using Yahoo when typing into the address bar or search bar in Firefox, you can choose another option like Google or Bing instead.

Related topic: If you want to use Google on your iPhone, our article on downloading the default Google search engine can show you how to get the Google search app for the device.

How to Switch Search Engines in Firefox (Picture Guide)

This guide was written using the most recent version of Firefox (36.0.1) available at the time of this writing.

The steps in this article will show you how to switch the search engine that is used when entering a search term in the address bar or search bar at the top of the window.

You can still go directly to any search engine by typing that engine's web page address (URL) into the address bar instead.

Step 1: Open Firefox.

Step 2: Click the "Open" menu button (with three horizontal lines) in the top right corner of the window.

Step 3: Click the Options button.

Step 4: Click on the Search tab at the top of the window.

Step 4: Click the dropdown menu under Default Search Engine, then select the search engine you want to use.

Step 5: Make sure the correct search engine is selected, then click the OK button at the bottom of the window.

The change will take effect immediately, so future searches will be performed using the search engine you selected in step 4.

Now that you know how to change the default search engine in Firefox, you can change this setting whenever you find that the current default search engine results aren't giving you the information you need.

Does your typing seem to lag when you're using Firefox, or does your mouse movements feel a bit twitchy? Try disabling hardware acceleration in Firefox to see if that fixes the issue.