How to make Thunderbird NOT use Bing as search engine?

Question

When I type something in Thunderbird's search bar, the first item that pops up is a Bing search for that term. Is there a way to remove Bing? I don't really need Thunderbird to be able to search the web.

So just removing it and leaving nothing is acceptable, but replacing it with, say, Google (or anything that's not Bing) works as well. I perused all the settings dialogs and preferences and couldn't find anything of the sort.

Answer 1

Well, if you want to use Google instead, simply install this add-on: Google Search for Thunderbird

Note that this kb article also explain how you can use another search engine: https://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/add-search-engine-open-search

I don't think that it is possible to disable it completely.

Answer 2

You can completely disable the Bing search suggestion in the search bar popup menu by adding this to your userChrome.css file:

.autocomplete-richlistitem[type="websearch"]
{ display: none !important; }

The advantages of doing it this way include:

• you don't have to modify the Thunderbird application itself by removing all the search plugins
• you don't have to re-delete the search plugins every time Thunderbird is updated
• it becomes part of your personal, portable profile
• web search is still available to other users on the same machine
• you can still do searches by right-clicking on selected text

Answer 3

Not certain if this helps or not, but a hint might be found under the settings for Thunderbird Preferences > Advanced > General > Advanced Configuration > Enable Global Search and Indexer. Perhaps you have chosen Bing as your default search provider in browser?

Another thing to do is to open the config editor at the same location and type in "search" in the about:config dialog. Look for the keyword.URL string to see what is set there. It may be set to Bing as the search provider.

You may also wish to see if any add-on was added into Thunderbird that has altered the standard behaviour.

Hope that helps. Have a nice day.

freecode

Answer 4

It's quite easy (at least it worked easily for me):

1. In Thunderbird, go to Tools > Add-ons > Plugins;

2. In the search window at the upper right of your screen ('Search all add-ons'), type 'Google';

3. Look down the list for 'Search Google for Thunderbird';

4. Click the 'Install' button;

5. Restart Thunderbird.

Good luck and hope this helps.

mike

Answer 5

I found that you can edit the bing.xml file in the searchplugins folder. Simply change the url. I use Startpage, so I modified the url:
FROM:

http://www.bing.com/search

TO:

 https://www.startpage.com/search

Good luck.