As you must have noticed, Windows 10 uses its default search engine (Bing) to display search results, while you may be used to searching with Google or other search providers. In this post you will be learning the steps to change the default search engine in Windows 10 to a search engine of your choice.

Why Microsoft Recommends Bing

Before changing the default search engine in Windows 10, you may like to learn a bit about why Microsoft wants you to continue using Bing as your default search engine.

According to Microsoft, leaving Bing as your default search engine in Windows 10 should help you enjoy a better user experience, due to the following reasons.

Direct links to Windows 10 apps, taking you straight to your apps faster.

More relevant suggestions from Cortana, your personal digital assistant.

You get instant Microsoft Edge and Windows 10 related help.

Change Search Engine in Windows 10

Apart from Cortana, there are basically two main interfaces where most users will be coming across the default Bing search engine in Windows 10.

Microsoft Edge Windows 10 Search Bar

We will be showing you how to change the default search engine in both these locations, so that you can make use of search results from Google or any other search provider of your choice.

1. Change Default Search Engine in Microsoft Edge

Changing default search engine in Microsoft Edge is not really a problem. Since Edge uses OpenSearch technology, it provides an option in its Settings Menu to use other search engines, as long as they also use OpenSearch.

Here is how you can change the default search engine in Microsoft Edge to any other search engine of your choice.

1. Open Microsoft Edge browser on your computer

2. An important step in order to set any other search engine as the default search engine on Microsoft Edge is to first visit the homepage of the search engine using Microsoft Edge browser.

In case you want to use Google, type www.google.com in the Microsoft Edge Address bar and press Enter (See image below)

3. Once you land on Google’s homepage, click on the three dots icon in the upper right corner of your screen to open a drop-down menu (See image below)

4. Select Settings from the drop-down menu and click on it (See image above)

5. Scroll down in the Settings panel and click on View advanced settings (See image below)

6. Scroll down in the Advanced settings page, till you see “Search in the address bar with” – You will see Bing set as the default search provider. Click on the Change button (See image above).

7. On the next page, select Google Search and also click on Set as Default to make Google as the default search engine on Microsoft Edge browser.

8. Restart Microsoft Edge browser and from now Google will be your new default search engine on this browser.

In above example, we have made Google as the default search engine for all searches carried out from the search bar on Microsoft Edge.

Apart from Google, you can add any other search engine of your choice by first visiting the home page of the search engine and then following the steps as indicated above.

After visiting the search engine’s home page, it should appear as an option in step#7 above. In case the search engine does not appear in the options, it is very likely that it does not support OpenSearch.

Windows 10 Will Still Use Bing!

Now that you have changed the default search engine using the Settings Menu in Windows 10, try searching from the Windows 10 Search Box, located at the bottom left corner of your screen (next to the Windows 10 Start button).

You will be surprised (if not annoyed), to see that Windows 10 still uses Bing as its default search engine when you search from the Windows 10 search box.

So the change to default search engine that we made using the Settings Menu in Windows 10 (above) does not apply to all aspects of search in Windows 10. It only applies to searches you make from Microsoft Edge Browser and does not affect the Windows 10 search box which is so convenient to use.

2. Change Default Search Engine in Windows 10 Search Box

A very easy work around to change the default search engine in Windows 10 search box is to install either Firefox or Google Chrome browser to your computer and follow the steps below.

In this example we are using Mozilla Firefox, you can also install Google Chrome and follow the steps to change the default search engine in Windows 10 search box to other search Engines like Google, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc.

1. First download the latest version of Firefox to your PC.

2. Install Firefox browser on your computer.

3. Next, Open the Firefox browser on your computer and click on the 3 line icon, located to the top right corner of your screen (See image in Step 4)

4. Click on Options to launch the Firefox Options page (See image below)

5. On the Options page, click on Search to view the search related settings (See image in Step 6)

6. Next, under the Default Search Engine section, select Google as the default search engine. In the same way, you can choose any other search engine of your choice.

7. Make sure that the option titled Use this search engine for searches from Windows is enabled.

That’s it, we have successfully changed the Windows 10 default search engine from Bing to Google, both in Microsoft Edge and also in Windows 10 Search box.