Replace The Default Firefox Google Search In Linux Mint

The recent release of Ubuntu’s Natty Narwhal forced me to reassess my usage of Ubuntu on my work and home machines. As I found the Unity interface drives me crazy and the release on a whole to be very buggy. So I decided to give Linux Mint a go, it has grown in popularity (#2 according to Distrowatch)  over the last few years so I figured they must be doing something right and Linux Mint 11 still uses no frills Gnome 2.32.

The migration went smooth, but by default the Linux Mint Firefox Google search functionality is useless, but luckily it wasn’t too much effort to fix.

First step is to change the home page by choosing “preferences” from the “edit” toolbar and changing the URL on the general tab. This still doesn’t help your results though if you search for something in the search box in the top right corner of the browser. To fix this head to this site, and look down the page until you find the link for your countries Google search. Click the link and it will be added to the search providers in the search box.

To remove the Linux Mint search provider and make your selected plugin default click on the search provider icon on the left hand side of the search box and select “manage search engines”. Select the default and click the remove button, then highlight your chosen provider and simply move to the top of the list with the “move up” button.

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2 thoughts on “Replace The Default Firefox Google Search In Linux Mint

  1. milke

    This is great tip, thank you so much!
    P.S. Mint project is being funded trough income from this service, but web browser search capabilities are crippled with their modification. I don’t mind helping Mint live, but they should focus some more effort in improving that Google search mod.

    Cheers, TY once again 🙂

  2. Chris

    Thank you, I’ve been searching for I while and it was so annoying to use the very limited Mint-Google Search.
    But after I read your hint with the keyword “search provider” it scales fell from my eyes 🙂 Greetings Chris

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