Tag Archives: google

Internet Explorer and Google Search Provider: Australia

Switching from Bing to Google as a default Search Provider. This is one of those issues that has had me frustrated for a number of years, since IE9 in fact. The Google Search Provider was simply not available. Even the Google page tells me that all I need to do is go to the IE Tools -> Manage Add-ons -> Find More Search providers and I’ll be able to select Google. Nup, that just does not work.

Have a look at this screenshot from IE11 this morning (the same occurred with IE9 and IE10)

2014-03-23 11_29_17-Internet Explorer Gallery - Internet Explorer

See that there are two links for Bing and then eBay and Grays On-line Auctions.

If you search in the little search box for Google the only option is a Search Accelerator which is just not the Provider we are looking for.

But if you search the web for ‘Change Bing to Google’ you only ever find the same instructions. I wrote about this a while back and manually tracked down a Google Search Provider add-on link in this post.

With setting up a new install of Windows on a PC this morning I tried again and finally the ‘penny dropped’. If you look closely at the URL it is targeting EN-AU or English Australia and if we change that part of the URL to EN-US  and magic happens. We get a host of Search Providers that are not available by default on the EN-AU page.

EN-US url provides more Search Options than EN-AU

So if you are in Australia and want to change to Google or anything other than Bing then you need to modify the URL. All the links on the internet are correct but only if you live in or have your PC settings for EN-US.

Internet Explorer 8 on XP Adding Google as Default Search Provider

Updated March 2014: http://howden.net.au/thowden/2014/03/internet-explorer-and-google-search-provider-australia/

With the updates to Internet Explorer through version 9 and 10 one of the things that Microsoft has apparently lost is the ability of IE8 users to add Google through the default options.

Searching the web will provide all manner of advice on installing Google as a Search Provider using the Manage Search Providers option which leads to the Manage Add-ons page and a link to Find More Search Providers…  which opens up http://www.iegallery.com/en-au/addons?callback=true&featuretype=2

The link used to provide a number of options including Google as a Search Provider and an option to manually Create Your Own Search Provider, but this is no longer the case. In fact the list of search providers includes 2 options for Bing (why?) and eBay Australia Search option. Now conspiracy theories aside, it is apparent that Microsoft will not actively promote Google but it is pretty damn obvious that they have made it damn near impossible to add Google.

So I have an older computer with XP on it and I am not about to upgrade and I persisted with searching through the 3 year old forums and finally found a direct link to a page.

http://www.iegallery.com/en-US/Addons/Details/813

And for as long as this Microsoft page is active the install of Google as a search provider is resolved.  But finding that page through any of the normal processes just does not work.