Microsoft’s new Edge browser uses Bing as its default search engine, but if you prefer something else you can change that. Edge can use any search engine that supports OpenSearch as its default.
Microsoft Edge no longer uses the old “search provider” plug-in system that Internet Explorer used, so you don’t have to worry about installing those. Instead, Edge features an easily accessible option for changing your search provider.
We’ll be switching to Google as our example here, but you can select another search engine if you like. For example, these instructions also work with DuckDuckGo.
The New, Chromium-Based Edge Browser
To use Google or another search engine as your default in Microsoft’s new Edge browser, click the menu and select “Settings.”
Click the “Privacy and services” option under Settings in the left sidebar.
Scroll down to the bottom of the right pane and look for the Services section. Click the “Address Bar” option under it.
Click the “Search engine used in the address bar” option and select “Google” or whatever search engine you prefer. In addition to Bing and Google, Edge also includes Yahoo! and DuckDuckGo by default.
You’re now done. You can close the Settings page and, when you search from the address bar or by right-clicking text on a web page and selecting the “Search the web” option, Edge will use your chosen search engine.
To manage the list of search engines that appears here, click the “Manage Search Engines” option. You’ll see a list of search engines. You can remove them from the list or click the “Add” button and add your own search engine by entering a URL.
The new version of Edge will also automatically find search engines when you use them, just like the old Edge. For example, if you prefer a different search engine, Edge says you should “open a new tab, go to the search engine you’d like to add, and search for something.” It will appear as an option in the list after you’ve used it, assuming the search engine is correctly configured to offer this.
Even after you change your default search engine, the search box on Edge’s New Tab page will remain a Bing search box. You can use the address bar to search with Google or another search engine from Edge’s New Tab page.
Classic Edge
Step One: Get More Search Engines
Microsoft Edge no longer uses search providers you have to install from Microsoft’s website. Instead, when you visit a web page that uses the “OpenSearch” standard to expose its search engine information, Edge notices this and makes a record of the search engine information.
This is the same way Google Chrome works, too—visit a web page with OpenSearch and Chrome will automatically detect it.
All you need to do is visit the search engine’s website to add that search engine to Edge. If you want to install Google, visit Google’s homepage. For DuckDuckGo, visit DuckDuckGo’s homepage. Once you’ve done so, you can make it the default using the instructions below.
Not every search engine supports OpenSearch yet, but we expect search engines will add support for this very quickly.
Step Two: Change Your Default Search Engine
To change your search provider, click the menu button—that’s the button with three dots at the top-right corner of the Microsoft Edge window. Select “Settings” in the menu.
At the left side of the “Settings” panel, click the “Advanced” option at the bottom of the list.
Scroll down in the Advanced settings panel and you’ll see the “Address bar search” setting. Click the “Change search provider” button.
You’ll see a list of available search providers. Select the search engine you want to use and click or tap “Set as Default”.
If the search engine you want to use doesn’t appear here, be sure you’ve visited the search engine’s homepage first. If you have visited the homepage and it still doesn’t appear, that search engine doesn’t support OpenSearch yet. You may want to contact the search engine and ask it to support OpenSearch so you can use it as your default search engine in Microsoft Edge.
Step Three: Search From the Address Bar or New Tab Page
You can now type a search query into Edge’s address bar and press Enter—it’ll automatically search your default search engine. Edge will even provide suggestions from it in the drop-down box, assuming your search engine supports suggestions and you leave them enabled in Edge’s settings.
This change also affects the “Where to next?” box on the new tab page, giving you a way to easily search your favorite search engine.
To quickly search with keyboard shortcuts, press Ctrl+T to open a new tab page or Ctrl+L to focus the address bar on the current page and start typing your search.
Unsurprisingly, this option doesn’t affect anything outside Microsoft Edge. When you perform a search from the Start menu or via Cortana and select “Search the web,” Windows will search the web with Bing. Cortana is, after all, “powered by Bing.” The above option only applies to searches you begin from within Microsoft Edge.
As usual, this only modifies a single browser’s settings. If you use Internet Explorer for legacy applications, you’ll need to change its search engine the old-fashioned way. Chrome, Firefox, and other browsers have their own default search options.