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Since the last update, whenever I close and reopen Firefox, my default search engine changes back to Google. What's going on?

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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Since the last update, whenever I close and reopen Firefox, my default search engine changes back to Google. I have to manually change it back to my preferred engine. Is anyone else having this problem, and if so, how can I permanently change my search provider, instead of having to manually change it again every time I start Firefox?

Since the last update, whenever I close and reopen Firefox, my default search engine changes back to Google. I have to manually change it back to my preferred engine. Is anyone else having this problem, and if so, how can I permanently change my search provider, instead of having to manually change it again every time I start Firefox?

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You can use the SearchReset extension to reset some preferences to the default values.

Note that the SearchReset extension only runs once and then uninstalls automatically, so it won't show on the "Firefox > Add-ons" page (about:addons).

If you do not keep changes after a restart or otherwise have problems with preferences, see:


Try to delete the search.json file and possible search-metadata.json and search.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder to reset the search engines to the default.

Firefox will rebuild the search.json file from the default search engines in the "browser\searchplugins" folder in the Firefox program folder and the searchplugins folder in the Firefox profile folder.

You can use this button to go to the currently used Firefox profile folder: