I’m fed up with the poor results from Microsoft Bing and would like to change my PC to only use Google for search. Is that possible?
There are three main areas where you interact with search engines on a Windows PC: In your browser, on the Taskbar, and through Microsoft Copilot. Do you want the good news or bad news first? The good news is that you can definitely change your default browser search engine, even in Microsoft Edge, but the bad news is that you cannot change the Taskbar search default or the Copilot default.
Shortcuts: Microsoft Edge Settings | Change Edge Default Search Engine | Taskbar Search | Copilot Search
All is not lost, however, so let’s have a closer look at things to understand what changes you can make and how you can improve your relationship with search! Unfortunately, there are some extensions on the Internet that promise you the ability to change the Taskbar search, but since the Taskbar is so critical to Windows, I would never install an extension that could mess with it. I recommend you be extremely cautious if you travel that path too.
SEARCH ENGINE SETTINGS IN EDGE
If you’re using Google Chrome or Firefox, odds are they already have Google as your default search engine, so let’s assume you’re using Microsoft Edge as your default. Since it is the default Windows Web browser, it’s a pretty safe bet. Do a search from the address bar, and it’ll actually send your query to your default search engine, as (subtly) noted below:
Notice the suffix on the first match: “Bing Search”. That tells us two things; first, that the tips and suggestions are from Bing, and second, that if we choose any of the suggested searches or just proceed with our own, we’ll be handing it to Microsoft Bing.
Luckily, this is the easy task. Click on the gear icon on the lower right of the suggested searches and you’ll jump right into Microsoft Edge settings:
If you really dislike the search suggestions, notice here that you can disable this feature with “Show me search and site suggestions using my typed characters”. Handy. But what you can’t change from this spot in the settings tree is the actual search engine. But you’re really close to that setting!
Click on the words “Address bar and search” and you’ll move to these settings:
Microsoft really wants you to stick with Bing, so the entire first portion highlights features “only available with Bing Search from Microsoft”.
HOW TO CHANGE THE SEARCH ENGINE
We are, however, in the right spot to change the default search engine, as shown in the “Search engine used in the address bar”. Click on “Bing (Recommended, default)” and you’ll see a set of options:
You’ve probably heard of the first three, and the oddly named DuckDuckGo is a privacy-centric search engine, while Yandex is a very popular search engine in Russia and the third most popular search engine in the world. You want Google, so choose it here.
Done. Now check out what happens when I do an address bar search:
The info appended to the first suggested result now says “Google Search”. Mission accomplished.
HOW ABOUT TASKBAR SEARCH?
Windows also has a handy Taskbar / Start Menu search box that can deliver results for both files and information on your PC and the Web at large. For example…
Instead of searching for a document containing “ferrari”, I simply asked a search query: “What’s the weather in jakarta”? It handled that fine, offering a number of “Search the web” results and info from the #1 match – the actual weather in Indonesia! Very slick.
But at the very bottom notice the button “Open results in browser”. Just to the left of that is the ‘b’ Bing logo. Yes, regardless of whether you’ve set a default browser and specified that you want Google as your default search engine, the Taskbar stubbornly insists that it’s going to use Bing for these particular results.
There’s no way to change it. A few sites suggest a user hack or downloadable extension, but really, I recommend you stay far away from anything that monkeys with this feature.
MICROSOFT COPILOT DEFAULT SEARCH ENGINE
Finally, what about Microsoft Copilot? It’s a wonderful AI assistant that’s built atop ChatGPT and with the latest versions of Win11, it’s always ready to help. But did you realize that it too does Web searches to answer your questions? You can ask it:
A logical follow-on is to simply ask Copilot if it can use Google instead, right?
Okay, fine. But does this mean that ChatGPT also uses Bing as a search engine? Let’s ask…
Ah, so it doesn’t use Google or Bing, but has its own secret ways of exploring what’s on the Web, as needed, to respond to queries.
Finally, as you can see, it’s pretty easy to change the default search engine in your Web browser, whether you’re using Edge or otherwise. Changing the search engine that’s a bit more deeply embedded into Windows 11, not so easy. Perhaps that will change, but for now, just be thoughtful channeling your searches so you get the results you desire!
Pro tip: I’ve been writing about Windows for many years. Please check out my Windows help area for lots more useful tutorials while you’re visiting the site!