This article applies only to an experimental version of Firefox for Android (Beta/Nightly formerly called Firefox Preview) that's no longer supported. Please download the supported version of Firefox for Android at the Google Play store
Firefox Preview gives you the ability to set a default search engine. There are a variety of search engines to choose from such as Google and Bing. You can also manually add other search engines and set them as your default.
Table of Contents
Manually add search engines
- Tap the menu button
- Tap .
- Tap from the Basics section.
- Tap Add search engine.
- A list of additional predefined search engines display.
- Tap the Other radio button to add a search engine that hasn’t been included in the predefined list and do the following:
- Enter the search engine’s name in the NAME text field.
- Enter a search string URL in the SEARCH STRING TO USE text field.
Please be sure to replace the query string with “%s”. For example, https://www.google.com/search?q=%s. If you don't know which search string to use for a particular search engine, you can access its website in a new tab, do any search and use the resulting URL as a reference. For example, if you go to ecosia.org and search for firefox, the resulting URL will be https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=firefox. Then the search string must be https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=%s, replacing the query with "%s". If the search string URL is flagged as invalid, an error message will display so that you can provide a valid URL.
The search engine is added to the predefined list of search engines in alphabetical order.
Set a default search engine
- Tap the menu button
- Tap .
- Tap from the Basics section.
- Tap one of the radio buttons to select a search engine.
- Tap the toggle to turn it on if you want search suggestions to display when typing keywords and phrases in the Address bar within the search engine.
- Tap the toggle to turn it on if you want to be able to access your search history and bookmarks from the search engine.
Edit search engine settings
- Tap the menu button
- Tap .
- Tap from the Basics section.
- Tap the three dots to the right of the search engine.
- Tap .
- Do any of the following:
- Tap the Search browsing history toggle on or off, which controls the ability to search browsing history from the search engine’s address bar.
- Tap the Search bookmarks toggle on or off, which controls the ability to search bookmarks from the search engine’s address bar.
- Tap the Show search suggestions toggle on or off, which controls whether search suggestions will display when entering URLs or keywords in the search engine’s address bar.
- Tap the Show in private sessions checkbox to add a check mark or clear it, which controls whether search suggestions will display when entering URLs or keywords in the search engine’s address bar while browsing privately.
Delete search engines
- Tap the menu button
- Tap .
- Tap from the Basics section.
- Tap the three dots to the right of the search engine.
- Tap .
The search engine no longer displays in the predefined list. A confirmation displays at the bottom of the screen. You can tap UNDO if you would like to add the search engine back to the predefined list.
