Google Chrome - Reset search engine

Question

I clicked on a link in a forum and it brought me to a google search result. The link was from google canada. It than asked me if I wanted to make google.ca me default search engine. I said yes. I regret this decision. I then tried to get my default google by deleteting the google.ca one, in the hopes google would replace it. That did not happen either.

How can I get my search engine preferences back in google chomre, and have the google.com as my default search engine again?

Answer 1

Try this:

1. Menu>Settings (Menu is the icon with 3 horizontal lines in the top-right corner of chrome)
2. Under "Search" click on "Manage search engines..."
3. Hover over the search engine you want, and click on "Make default"

If for some reason, the one you want doesn't exist, then do the following:

1. Go to http://google.com
2. Right click on the search bar and select "Add as Search Engine"
3. Choose a name and keyword but leave the URL as it is. Save and follow the steps at the beginning of this answer.

Answer 2

If you deleted the default search engine, there's no starightforward way to get it back. Even if you manually add Google, it will lack some features like, e.g., autocompletion.

You can find a method to restore it in my answer to Google.com autocomplete feature in Google Chrome omninox.

Note that this will still route your searches through Google Canada. You can undo this in the same way you switched to google.ca in the first place:

1. Visit http://google.ca.

2. Click the Google.com link in the lower right corner.

   This will update the preference in your cookies.

3. After a while, Chrome will ask you again if you'd like to switch to google.com. Say yes.

   This will update the preference in Chrome.