Resetting a Hijacked Search Engine to the Firefox Default

WOW! My search got hijacked by WOWWay! when I switched my cable internet service to WOW. My default search results page has always been Google; however, after my WOW! installation, I noticed that whenever I did a keyword search using the Location toolbar, my results page would be an ugly WOWWay-branded search results page rather than Google.

This was terribly invasive and annoying for me, so I took some time to research how to set Firefox back to Google keyword search results page. This is how I did it:

1. In the Location toolbar, enter about:config
2. When prompted, select “I Promise”
3. Look for Preference name: keyword.URL
4. Right-click whatever the current value is in the value column and select “Modify”
5. Enter this new value:
   http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&q=

Sources:

http://ketanravalnurture.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-change-default-search-engine.html

Keyword.URL – MozillaZine Knowledge Base.