If you type a search into the URL bar in Google Chrome and press enter, it will search that search on Google for you. This is really handy, but if you prefer to use a search engine other than Google, you can actually change it to automatically search using any other search engine you want!
So in this article, that’s exactly what I’m going to show you how to do.
Prefer to watch a video about how to change the default search engine in Google Chrome? Click here.
How To Change The Default Search Engine In Chrome
To change the default search engine in Google Chrome, the first thing you’ll need to do is open up the settings page by clicking on the three dots in the top right hand corner…
And then clicking on “Settings” in the menu that appears.
Now, you’ll be in the settings of Google Chrome. And to change the search engine settings, you’ll need to click on “Search engine” in the menu down the left hand side of the screen.
Once you’re here, you’ll see the dropdown menu next to where it says “Search engine used in the address bar” is currently set to “Google”.
And, if you click on the drop down menu, you will have the option to change it to either Yahoo or Bing.
So if you want to change your default search engine to Yahoo or Bing, you can just select the one you want in this dropdown menu, and you’ll be done!
But, obviously, there are a lot of search engines in the world other than Yahoo and Bing, and if you want to use a different search engine as your default search engine, there will be a few more steps involved.
First, click on “Manage search engines” just below the dropdown menu.
Now, if you scroll down a bit, you will see a list of the three most common search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing), and if you scroll down below that, you’ll see a list of a whole lot of other search engines.
These are all the websites you’ve visited in the past that have a search function that can be integrated with Google Chrome. So if there’s a different search engine you want to use, as long as you’ve visited that website in the past using Google Chrome, it should show up in this list.
If the search engine you want to use doesn’t show up here, just open a new tab, and visit that website. For example, if you want to use Duck Duck Go, just go to duckduckgo.com in a new tab. Then, come back here, and the search engine you wanted to use should now be showing in this list.
Now, just click on the three dots next to the search engine you want to use as your default search engine…
And then, in the menu that appears, click “Make default”.
And that’s it! You’re done! The search engine of your choice will now be showing near the top of the settings page under “Default search engines”, and it will be highlighted bold which means it’s the one you will actually be using.
So now, if you open a new tab, type a search in the address bar, and press enter, it will do that search using the search engine you chose!
And that’s all there is to changing the default search engine in Google Chrome! Now, whenever you make a search in the URL bar, it will use your search engine of choice!
