I have searched through and read several sites in vain while trying to correct a recent problem: I downloaded AIM for chats and despite the fact that I unchecked the "Make AIM my default search engine" in the installation, AIM still went ahead and took over my searches. Even after uninstalling (as I thought) all AIM programs from my computer I still can't get rid of the search engine in the main navigation window of Firefox. I was wondering if you can help me re-set Google as my default search engine. I'm using WinXP and Mozilla Firefox.

click on the AIM icon a list of search providers should show click on google and thats it

Unfortunately I have no AIM icon anymore to click on. The one in the navigation bar won't let me click on it.

ok open firefox and in the address bar type this

about:config

and then hit enter

then scroll down to

browser.search.selectedEngine

then right click on it and then click reset

close firefox and the open firefox google should be back

let me know if this worked

if it does not I'll find another solution

one more thing you should check is

browser.search.searchEnginesURL

the value should be

https://%LOCALE%.add-ons.mozilla.com...earch-engines/

I can't tell you how grateful I am for this help.
I wasn't able to locate either browser.search.selectedEngine or browser.search.searchEnginesURL in the list of configurations. I tried tweaking two things that looked similar enough and resetting the value to the stream you suggested. But still when I open Firefox the default is AIM.

I found out if I scroll down to keywordURL and click Reset it resets back to google. It works now. Thank you so much again for all your help!!

great glad you got it working

I'm having the same problem I had a year ago, only this time around the solutions we tried (successfully) last year aren't working anymore: I've somehow lost the ability to have Google as my default search engine in Mozilla. I've tried typing about: config in the address bar and then scrolling down to keywordURL, but when I right click on this there's no option of doing "reset"--only "modify" or "copy" (this worked last year). I don't suppose you have any further suggestions? Thanks so much....

OK - sounds like it might simply be time to create a new FF profile, as it sounds like has become completely corrupted if it won't allow any resets.

BTW - I'm assuming have again gotten rid of AIM, with no more desire to tempt fate ??

Now before guiding you through setting up a new profile in Firefox, do you have any saved passwords? Just asking, as this will require an extra add-in. Let us know and can go from there.

NB: Would also recommend downloading CCleaner and running the Registry cleaner to remove any lingering entries AIM left behind, just to make sure it doesn't continue to interfere