OK, who just loves the default Firefox Google page you get when you just hit Return from the default searchbar?
Firefox/Google start page
What, no-one? Bit sucky isn’t it? Especially if you’ve got into the distractions joys of iGoogle, and customised your very own version, with such essential information as Optical Illusion of the Day and local weather forecast.
An example iGoogle home page
I’ve found this a minor annoyance for a long time now, but finally got round to fixing it. The hardest part was not editing the Firefox search plugin, that’s a doddle, it was finding out where the heck to put it amongst all the /Program files/, /Documents and Settings/ and /User/ folders…
So, a big hand for Varun Kashyap’s TechCrazy Blog (Computers and Technology, explained and simplified)!
There are two ways of doing it:
Either
- Copy and paste the text at the bottom of this post into a text editor like TextPad, then save it as iGoogle-en-UK.xml somewhere like your desktop.
or
- Save this file: iGoogle-en-UK.xml.
You can edit the UK-specific bits pretty easily if you want.
Once you’ve got the file, move it to one of the following locations, depending on your platform/operating system:
- Windows 2000/XP -
C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\string\searchplugins - Windows Vista -
C:\Users\user name\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\string\searchplugins - Windows 98/ME -
C:\Windows\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ - Macintosh (OS X) -
~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/ - Linux/Unix -
~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/
Note, as the esteemed Mr Kashyap explains, you may need to tell windoze explorer to show hidden and system files.
Now all you need to do is close and restart Firefox and the iGoogle search plugin will appear. Click on the drop-down-arrow to the right of the existing Google icon and a list of search plugins appears. Click again on the last one, which should be labled iGoogle, and it becomes your selected search tool. Click again in the empty search box and there is iGoogle!
If you want to de-clutter your list of search engines, click again on the search plugin list and again on the final entry, Manage Search Engines… You can now move iGoogle up to the top entry, or wherever you want it, and delete Google. Doing it this way rather than mucking around in /Program files/Mozarella/Firefox or wherever ensures that other users of the same PC won’t lose their Firefox Google search.
Oh, and as this conforms to the latest search plugin standard, you should also be able to use it in other browsers. If anyone has any success at this, or with Windows 7, please leave a comment explaining with what, and how…
Happy iGoogling!