Some time ago, a spam-like spread with the name of AVG. I remember that my homepage was changed for something like serach.avg.com.foo/bar… I changed my homepage using Firefox preferences, some other things, but whenever I tried to search for something using the URL bar, my browser always used that weird page and I never could change it. Today I was trying to install Echofon (which was discontinued) manually and had to look in the about:support area of Firefox, where I founded an attribute named keyword.URL that has the exact same address that my homepage had. I found the URL problem without even try it!
I always loved using google, so, if you have this problem and want your old google search when using the URL bar, it’s pretty simple, just follow these steps:
- Open your Firefox browser and type about:config in the address bar, to go to Firefox configuration. (A little message will appear warning you to not change things that you don’t know. Really, don’t. )
- After you pass the warning message, a big list with random parameters names will appear. On the top, you will see what seems to be a Search bar. Which it is, so use type in there keyword.URL, then you will see that the list of parameters got filtered with your criteria and the actual parameter will be the only one on the list.
- Double click the name and a little input box will appear, asking you to define the new value of that parameter. If you want to go back to use google, you should write https://www.google.com.gt/search?q= in the box and click ok.
(NOTE: What this is going to do is that whatever you wrote in the address bar, will be concatenated to the value defined in the parameter before. So, feel free to use this parameter as you’d like)
With this, the value has been successfully changed and whatever you type in the address bar (that is not a URL) will be executed as explained before. With that, you are done fixing your default web search from the address bar.
If anything, feel free to ask or comment.
Greetings!
