got hi-jacked by bing

[sean neilan]

I don't know how it happened or what I did but now when I open my pc it goes to bing instead of going to the google page like I've been used to for years. I'm not good enough to fix the problem on my own I have tried. All I want is when I click on my Fire Fox icon is that it goes straight to google as my default web browser. Can anyone help me or coach me so that I can get back to the place that I'm comfortable with for surfing the web?

[tgalati4]

You have been scroogled. Click the search bar on the upper right where the search icon is located. You should see a small, dark grey down arrow. Press that and go to "Manage Search Engines". Click on Bing and hit "Remove". Then click on google if it is still there. If it is missing, then click "Add more search engines" then add www.google.com. Life is too short to use Bing.

[squakie]

Are you talking for just a search engine, or are you talking about just starting Firefox and the first page you see is Google? If the latter, go to www.google.com, then click on "Edit" and then on "Preferences". Now click on the "General" tab. Now look at the 2nd from the top section "Startup". Be sure that "When Firefox starts" is set to "Show my homepage". The next line down determines what that home page is. Click on the "Use current page" button, click close, close Firefox and restart Firefox. It should now open with Google's page.

[sean neilan]

Thank you for responding I tried it but when I click on the grey arrow it takes me to my most recent downloads, but I will keep on trying and see what happens thanks again.

[sean neilan]

I tried it and it worked but the google page is a little different then the one I had before? The important thing is that Google is now my home page again and I thank you for responding and helping me out, and your cat looks cute in the antlers I can't believe that you got them to stay on your cats head.

[squakie]

I thought for sure he was going to kill me, but he actually didn't mind them. He even sat on a box with them on while we opened gifts! It had a matching colar with bells on it - lesson learned - he ran around the house like a mad man, bumping into all kinds of things and not stopping. It took me 10 minutes to catch him and take it off. After that was off he was his old self again. Seems he was trying to run away from the bells, and the more he ran the more they rang. Poor little guy was going crazy!

Glad thinks worked for you!

[pompel9]

I thought for sure he was going to kill me, but he actually didn't mind them. He even sat on a box with them on while we opened gifts! It had a matching colar with bells on it - lesson learned - he ran around the house like a mad man, bumping into all kinds of things and not stopping. It took me 10 minutes to catch him and take it off. After that was off he was his old self again. Seems he was trying to run away from the bells, and the more he ran the more they rang. Poor little guy was going crazy!

Glad thinks worked for you!

Interesting

[mastablasta]

then again i noticed google is getting worse and worse with this new algorythm they introduced last year.

even when searching for exat phrase a nonrelated term are found first.

there is a local tablet (probably of chinese origin) called tpad. i searched for any review. and first couple of pages it gave me ipad review instead. to top of the sad search it even suggested similar sites that were all ipad sites.

just today i did a search on game advice with "hearts of iron 3 can not puppet japan" and a couple of first results were forum threads of people asking "should i puppet china?" . there was one thread about 5 places down that said should i puppet japan. so i tried the exact same words in search and again thread about puppeting china etc. came on top.

i've noticed often lately i simply do not get the correct result in first page. even if the result has title that almopst exactly matches my search other irrelevent sites are put in front. in short search engine is getting rubish ever since they started with this Panda.

[squakie]

Interesting. I just tried with tpad tablet as the search string, and it still shows a link for the ipad mini first! Something tells me "someone" may have paid some $ for getting their product bumped to the front, or else they have a robot constantly checking and updating so they are moved to the top.

I guess that's why I actually do prefer Bing myself - never really thought about it - but I do seem to get more relavent hits with it.

EDIT: I also just tried the following - a slight modification - and at least got some info towards the top:

hearts of iron 3 error puppet japan

I don't actually know anything about hears of iron 3, so I couldn't tell you if they are in anyway related to the search criteria.

Either should have worked - I think you are right on the mark with their changed algorythms messing things up (perhaps a "small" hook to list some "special" clients first?). Never really thought about it until your post - thanks!

[Buntu Bunny]

Lately I find DuckDuckGo to give the best search results for my queries.