Manage Or Change Default Search Provider In IE

IE (Internet Explorer) has a default search provider (engine) which is preset for searches from the search bar and/or address bar. In both cases the default provider in IE is Bing – Microsoft’s search engine. (Some versions of IE8, and older, may still have a default provider of ‘Live Search’ but this is really Bing – Microsoft renamed it in 2009).

But what if you want to change the default search provider (e.g. to Google), add a new one or delete an existing one? It is easy to change the default search provider in IE or delete one but it is a little harder to add a new one.

I’ll cover each of these options, beginning with how to add a new search provider in IE – I will only cover IE8 and IE9 as they are the latest versions for XP and Vista/7 respectively (IE6 and IE7 are outdated, insecure and can be considered obsolete).

Add A New Search Provider In IE8 OR IE9

  • Open IE and browse to the IE Gallery page here where you can search for a new provider in the Add-ons section
  • The easiest way to search is to type your query e.g. Google into the Search box then press Enter – this should return all results for that provider
  • In my example it would return 2 results in an icon/tile format: Google search provider and Google accelerator
  • Click on the relevant search provider icon to open an individual page for that provider then click the ‘Add To Internet Explorer’ button to display the ‘Add Search Provider’ dialog box
  • If you want the provider you are adding to be used by default when searching from the Address bar or search box, select the ‘Make this my default search provider’ check box else leave it unticked
  • If the search provider offers search suggestions (most do), select/tick the ‘Use search suggestions from this provider’ check box to receive search suggestions
  • Click the Add button to add this search provider

Repeat the process above for each provider you want to add (but only one search provider can be the default).

Change The Default Search Provider In IE8

  • Open IE8 and click the down arrow to the right of the search box
  • IEsearch1Click ‘Manage Search Providers’
  • Click the search provider you would like to set as the default (if you need to add a new search provider first, see the previous section)
  • Click the ‘Set as default’ button and then click ‘Close’

 

IEsearch2

The new search provider will now be the default.

Change The Default Search Provider In IE9

  • Open IE9 and click ‘Tools’ from the menu bar then click ‘Manage add-ons’ (Note: if the menu bar is not displayed, press the ALT key to display it)
  • In the ‘Manage Add-ons’ window, click ‘Search Providers’ in the left pane

IEsearch3

  • Click the search provider you would like to set as the default (if you need to add a new search provider first, see the previous section)
  • Click the ‘Set as default’ button and then click ‘Close’

The new search provider will now be the default.

Delete A Search Provider In IE8

  • Open IE8 and click the down arrow to the right of the search box
  • Click ‘Manage Search Providers’
  • Click the search provider you would like to remove
  • Click the ‘Remove’ button and then click ‘Close’ to delete that provider

Delete A Search Provider In IE9

  • Open IE9 and click ‘Tools’ from the menu bar then click ‘Manage add-ons’ (if the menu bar is not displayed, press the ALT key to display it)
  • In the ‘Manage Add-ons’ window, click ‘Search Providers’ in the left pane
  • Click the search provider you would like to remove
  • Click the ‘Remove’ button and then click ‘Close’ to delete that provider

1 thought on “Manage Or Change Default Search Provider In IE”

  1. MY Internet Explorer Manage Add-ons page open every time i open a browser window without my doing anything other than openning the browser and is selected for Search Providers. I can not find any info on how to stop this behavior. It never happened before a few weeks ago.
    Now every time I open a browser I must click close this Internet Explorer Manage Add-ons page.
    Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
    I even tried removing Internet Explorer all together and, it seems I am not allowed to do even that.

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