Free does not usually mean that it comes without annoyances – a lesson learned from free AVG antivirus. Apparently it likes to hijack my browser without my consent. Here are the steps to get rid of that pesky AVG safe search for Mozilla’s Firefox address bar:
- Type in the address-bar about:config and press Enter
- Confirm warning dialog
- Type in keyword.url in the filter
- Change value of keyword.url to http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&q= by right clicking on it and selecting “Modify” from the popup menu
Thanks for the instructions above. They worked perfectly and I now have Google back as the default omnibox search engine in Firefox since AVG Safe Search hijacked it.
I felt compelled to write a thank you to you because this behaviour of AVGs’ is extremely worrying not to mention damned annoying. They are in a trusted position, even with their free offerings, and have abused it considerably by installing something that was unrequested plus awkward and time-consuming to find a solution to, the very thing that their sort of programs should be keeping away from us.
As an IT Consultant myself, I will be advising my clients to be very cautious about installing *ANY* AVG product from now on, and will be looking at products such as Avast as the new standard installation for my clients from now on. Feel free to communicate my feelings verbatim to AVG and their ilk.
Thanks again.
Thanks for taking your time to write a comment here :) Happy it sorted out your issue!
Just wanted to say this was incredibly helpful!
Awesome fix there, worked nicely for me too! Thanks :D
Thank you so much! Wow, I don’t even have AVG so I have no idea how this installed itself. It’s like a virus itself. What rubbish.