Dave Clayton

Jul 15

Internet Explorer search box naughtiness

The first time Internet Explorer runs, you’re asked if you wish to keep Bing as your search provider, or choose from a selection of other available search providers. If you opt to choose, you’re taken a page that allows you to choose from the most popular sites, including Google and Yahoo. Here is the link to this page:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/searchguide/en-uk/default.mspx?dcsref=http://runonce.msn.com/runonce2.aspx

However, it’s trickier to do this after the initial setup. The most obvious way to change search providers is to use the “Find more search providers” feature, which is either available in the drop down menu next to the search button (magnifying glass), or from the Tools menu (Tools -> Manage Add-Ons -> Search Providers -> Find more search providers…). Using this feature takes you to a different page:

http://www.iegallery.com/gb/addons/?feature=searchproviders

The options on this page are Microsoft Exclusive - almost all of the sites are Bing search sites, and there are no links to add other search providers (Google, Yahoo, etc). You can install a “Search with Google” accelerator, which allows you to select text, right click, and then ”Search with Google”, but this doesn’t update your default search provider or the search box that appears next to the address bar.