Are you using the Opera web browser and you want to change the default search engine from Google to Bing, DuckDuckGo, Qwant or something else? Here are four methods for changing Opera's search engine so that, each time you look for something in the address bar, the search engine that you want returns the results:
NOTE: This guide was created using Opera version 57. If Opera changes and this guide no longer works, do not hesitate to leave a comment. Let us know about this problem, and we will update the article as soon as possible. Thank you!
1. Change the default search engine in Opera to Bing, Yahoo!, or DuckDuckGo
Opera makes it easy to change the default search engine, if you want to switch to Bing, Yahoo!, DuckDuckGo, Amazon, and Wikipedia. If the search engine that you want is one of them, then follow the instructions in this section. First, open Opera and click or tap the O button that is shown in the top-left corner. This button is named "Customize and control Opera." In the menu that is displayed, choose Settings.
Accessing Opera's settings
The Settings tab is shown. On the left, click or tap Basic. Next, scroll down and look for the Search engine section. Once you find it, click on the drop-down list with the available search engines. In the list of search engines, select the one that you want to use.
Search engine settings in Opera
Close the Settings tab and you are done. Opera now uses the search engine that you selected, when using the address bar for search, and it no longer uses Google as the default. The same procedure works if you want to switch Opera's default search engine back to Google.
2. Visit the search engine that you want to use and follow its instructions
Some search engines, like DuckDuckGo, when you visit them in Opera, show a button for adding it to your browser. If the search engine that you want to use does this, click on the Add/Install button that is displayed and follow its instructions for adding it as the default search engine in Opera.
Adding DuckDuckGo to Opera
The steps involved differ from search engine to search engine.
3. Check Opera's list of available search engines
If the search engine that you want to use is not available in the list shown in the first method of this guide, then go to this webpage on Opera's website. It includes a long list of search engines that can be added to the Opera web browser.
Search engines available as Opera add-ons
Scroll the list until you find the search engine that you are looking for and click or tap on its name. As an example, we chose to add the Qwant search engine (another private search engine). A description is shown. You see an "Add to Opera" button on the right. Click or tap on it and the selected search engine is installed.
Adding Qwant for Opera
You can now use the new search engine as the default, in Opera's address bar.
4. Manually add search engines to Opera
The Opera web browser also gives you the option to manually add a search engine that you want to use. To do that, click the O button that is shown in the top-left corner. Then, go to "Settings -> Basic -> Search engine." In the Search engine section, click the "Manage search engines" link.
Managing Opera's search engines
You are shown a list with all the search engines that are installed, and their properties. Click or tap the Add button next to "Other search engines."
Other search engines for Opera
You are shown a prompt where you can enter the properties of the search engine that you want to add: the name, the keyword that is used to access it from the address bar, and the URL where Opera is going to send your search queries. When you are done setting things, press Add.
Adding a search engine in Opera
The search engine is added to Opera, and now you can set it as the default for your searches.
Which search engine do you want to use in Opera?
You have arrived at the end of this article because, most probably, you are not a big fan of Google or you want to try another search engine and see if it is better than Google. Before closing this tutorial, share with us what search engine you have switched to, in a comment below. We would very much like to know.
ive tried selecting ONLY DuckDuck.. but for some weird reason it always reverts to eFfffing Goggle arrrrrrghhhhh… I HATE GOOGLE STUFF so much my google password is SHITONYOUGOOGLe…. win10 and android give same results.. reverts back for no reason to google
Ciprian Adrian Rusen ·
On my PC, Opera doesn’t have this issue you’re describing.
Psygonn ·
Hey friends, I figured I’d explain some of the less intuitive things going on here with the Opera settings.
On the Start page there is a google search box, whether google is your default search engine or not. Unfortunately, as far as I know (perhaps there’s an addon or something out there), there’s no way to change this to another search engine. One can, however, disable this search box in advanced settings, it’s the first option under ‘start page’ and it’s ‘Hide search box’ and must be enabled to make the search box go away.
‘Intuitive’ might not have been in their vocabulary.
It seems like a few people above were having an issue changing the default search engine, but I suspect that it was actually the google-search-box-on-the-start-page-that-won’t-change-even-if-you-change-the-default-search-engine that they were seeing.
Under VPN, there’s an option called ‘Bypass VPN for default search engines’. Unless that is disabled, the VPN will always be off on google search pages and the like. ‘Peter’ above was having an issue with google and the Opera VPN, enabling this option might solve that.
Remember, enable the VPN in advanced settings then click up at the top where it pops up and disconnect it there, so the button remains available up top and you can use the VPN any time, it can be quite useful. I use a normal VPN and often when I have an issue with that VPN making a page not work, I just flip on the Opera VPN and viola, it works without having to disable my system VPN.
For Ecosia, you have to add it manually, here are the steps to do that. I copied and pasted these from this forum page: https://forums.opera.com/topic/24618/ecosia-search-engine-as-default/15
”
Go to settings and search for “search engines” / right click the place where website addresses are displayed (search bar) and click edit search engines.
Under “Other search engines” click add and fill in as follows
a) Search engine: Ecosia
b) Keyword: e
c) URL with %s in place of query: https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=%s
Go on the search bar and type “e ” and then you’ll be using Ecosia. Unfortunately, the settings do not allow for it to be truly default although it does get really close.
”
‘Melanie’ above pointed out that typing a key letter with a space before your search term can cause certain searches that start with a single letter and a space to cause the search engine to change and be confusing. One potential solution to this is to go to ‘User interface’ in advanced settings and there’s an option called ‘Enable search box in the address bar’. Enabling this creates a separate search bar in the upper-right which is not affected by the rule where you type the key letter with a space to change the search engine. I suppose making this a habit just to get around that uncommon problem isn’t necessarily the most convenient thing. Hopefully Opera changes its interface and settings to be more intuitive and powerful because little things like these can drive people away all the time.
I just learned about the ‘homepage in new tab’ extension, which as far as I can tell is actually just a homepage button. https://addons.opera.com/en-gb/extensions/details/homepage-in-new-tab/
Install it, set the URL to the page you want, click the cube in the upper right for extensions and click the pin by the new extension to pin the button to the address bar. Now you can click the ‘home’ button to navigate to the homepage you set whenever you open a new tab or whenever you want.
Hope this helps someone, Opera is a great browser but it does have some tricky stuff going on in the settings with the interface and whatnot. I also like Brave, Firefox, and occasionally Epic for when I want to be extra private but don’t feel the need for Tor.
Ciprian Adrian Rusen ·
Thanks for sharing all this information
deschutesmaple ·
I’m using Opera Version:73.0.3856.284
Contrary to the advice given here, you can add other browsers but you CANNOT make them a default browser. So, Opera forces you to only choose from Google, Duckduckgo (actually a bad search engine in terms of quality of results), Yahoo (also sucks), Wikipedia (!?), and crappy Bing. If they want to force us to use the monopoly search engines they should just delete the ‘add other search engine field’ altogether. What a bummer 🙁
Rob ·
I changed the default search engine to Bing as Google is getting too heavy handed about steering you towards their ads and prefered sites. However its ignoring my Settings and still going to Google dispite being set to Bing.
rami ·
ecosia please
Roland ·
Sorry, this is simply not true!
I cannot make a custom search engine default.
onewabash ·
I wanted to make duck duck go my primary search engine in Opera. I followed all the steps shown. In my settings, duckduckgo is noted as the primary search engine, yet google remains my primary. Any suggestions?? (Google new motto “be evil” and I want nothing to do with them.)
Anonymous ·
You mean the Google search box in the middle remains? Unfortunately that always remains, no matter what you do. Search using the address bar on the top, and you see that DuckDuckGo is used.
ryan ·
i did everything correct. it will not change the google to duckduckgo. i will be deleting opera if this doe snot get fix
Peter ·
I can change the default search engine and start page to Duck Duck, everytime I restart Duck Duck comes up, that what I want.
But every time I open a new tab its Googe that comes up and Google won’t play ( I am running Opera VPN)
I get
“About this page
Our systems have detected unusual traffic from your computer network. This page checks to see if it’s really you sending the requests, and not a robot.
I do the bot Capture stuff but can’t proceed any further.
Ideas?
Melanie ·
Really nice, user-friendly article. I was just wondering, do you know of a way to remove the listed search engines, or to change the letter assigned to them to something less accident-prone? I forget about them, and every time I look up Z Nation (one of my favourite programmes, probably look it up once or twice a year), it takes me ages to figure out how the heck I ended up on Amazon, and how to search on Google instead. I’d really like the default to STAY as the default I’ve selected, not randomly shoot me off somewhere else.
Thanks.
Stephen Ray Williams ·
So, how might I switch between different search engines?
(Other than changing Opera’s settings)
Firefox has a quick and convenient pull down menu in the search box.
BlackRainbow ·
Now that’s a shame this doesn’t work with custom search engines anymore. I just want to use Ecosia again.
Daan ·
Me too!
John Anderson ·
I wanted to change my browser to duck duck go. Thanks for helping me out. Keep up the good word. Best of luck.
Jems Ford ·
A browser is an application program that provides a way to look at and interact with all the information on the World Wide Web. Many types of a browser are available on the internet. you can use the Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer etc. Opera is the good Browser for using the internet. If your Internet Explorer is not working properly then please visit https://babasupport.org/browser/internet-explorer-customer-service/342
Discussion (18)
ive tried selecting ONLY DuckDuck.. but for some weird reason it always reverts to eFfffing Goggle arrrrrrghhhhh… I HATE GOOGLE STUFF so much my google password is SHITONYOUGOOGLe…. win10 and android give same results.. reverts back for no reason to google
On my PC, Opera doesn’t have this issue you’re describing.
Hey friends, I figured I’d explain some of the less intuitive things going on here with the Opera settings.
On the Start page there is a google search box, whether google is your default search engine or not. Unfortunately, as far as I know (perhaps there’s an addon or something out there), there’s no way to change this to another search engine. One can, however, disable this search box in advanced settings, it’s the first option under ‘start page’ and it’s ‘Hide search box’ and must be enabled to make the search box go away.
‘Intuitive’ might not have been in their vocabulary.
It seems like a few people above were having an issue changing the default search engine, but I suspect that it was actually the google-search-box-on-the-start-page-that-won’t-change-even-if-you-change-the-default-search-engine that they were seeing.
Under VPN, there’s an option called ‘Bypass VPN for default search engines’. Unless that is disabled, the VPN will always be off on google search pages and the like. ‘Peter’ above was having an issue with google and the Opera VPN, enabling this option might solve that.
Remember, enable the VPN in advanced settings then click up at the top where it pops up and disconnect it there, so the button remains available up top and you can use the VPN any time, it can be quite useful. I use a normal VPN and often when I have an issue with that VPN making a page not work, I just flip on the Opera VPN and viola, it works without having to disable my system VPN.
For using Qwant, you can install an addon to add it to search engines and press
“q” + “(space)” + “(searchterms)” hoipe that’s not too confusing, here’s the addon url
https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/qwant-for-opera/
For Ecosia, you have to add it manually, here are the steps to do that. I copied and pasted these from this forum page:
https://forums.opera.com/topic/24618/ecosia-search-engine-as-default/15
”
Go to settings and search for “search engines” / right click the place where website addresses are displayed (search bar) and click edit search engines.
Under “Other search engines” click add and fill in as follows
a) Search engine: Ecosia
b) Keyword: e
c) URL with %s in place of query: https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=%s
Go on the search bar and type “e ” and then you’ll be using Ecosia. Unfortunately, the settings do not allow for it to be truly default although it does get really close.
”
‘Melanie’ above pointed out that typing a key letter with a space before your search term can cause certain searches that start with a single letter and a space to cause the search engine to change and be confusing. One potential solution to this is to go to ‘User interface’ in advanced settings and there’s an option called ‘Enable search box in the address bar’. Enabling this creates a separate search bar in the upper-right which is not affected by the rule where you type the key letter with a space to change the search engine. I suppose making this a habit just to get around that uncommon problem isn’t necessarily the most convenient thing. Hopefully Opera changes its interface and settings to be more intuitive and powerful because little things like these can drive people away all the time.
I just learned about the ‘homepage in new tab’ extension, which as far as I can tell is actually just a homepage button.
https://addons.opera.com/en-gb/extensions/details/homepage-in-new-tab/
Install it, set the URL to the page you want, click the cube in the upper right for extensions and click the pin by the new extension to pin the button to the address bar. Now you can click the ‘home’ button to navigate to the homepage you set whenever you open a new tab or whenever you want.
Hope this helps someone, Opera is a great browser but it does have some tricky stuff going on in the settings with the interface and whatnot. I also like Brave, Firefox, and occasionally Epic for when I want to be extra private but don’t feel the need for Tor.
Thanks for sharing all this information
I’m using Opera Version:73.0.3856.284
Contrary to the advice given here, you can add other browsers but you CANNOT make them a default browser. So, Opera forces you to only choose from Google, Duckduckgo (actually a bad search engine in terms of quality of results), Yahoo (also sucks), Wikipedia (!?), and crappy Bing. If they want to force us to use the monopoly search engines they should just delete the ‘add other search engine field’ altogether. What a bummer 🙁
I changed the default search engine to Bing as Google is getting too heavy handed about steering you towards their ads and prefered sites. However its ignoring my Settings and still going to Google dispite being set to Bing.
ecosia please
Sorry, this is simply not true!
I cannot make a custom search engine default.
I wanted to make duck duck go my primary search engine in Opera. I followed all the steps shown. In my settings, duckduckgo is noted as the primary search engine, yet google remains my primary. Any suggestions?? (Google new motto “be evil” and I want nothing to do with them.)
You mean the Google search box in the middle remains? Unfortunately that always remains, no matter what you do. Search using the address bar on the top, and you see that DuckDuckGo is used.
i did everything correct. it will not change the google to duckduckgo. i will be deleting opera if this doe snot get fix
I can change the default search engine and start page to Duck Duck, everytime I restart Duck Duck comes up, that what I want.
But every time I open a new tab its Googe that comes up and Google won’t play ( I am running Opera VPN)
I get
“About this page
Our systems have detected unusual traffic from your computer network. This page checks to see if it’s really you sending the requests, and not a robot.
Why did this happen?
IP address: 2001:67c:2660:425:b::114
Time: 2018-12-23T01:39:41Z
URL: https://www.google.co.uk/search?client=opera&q=tea&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8”
I do the bot Capture stuff but can’t proceed any further.
Ideas?
Really nice, user-friendly article. I was just wondering, do you know of a way to remove the listed search engines, or to change the letter assigned to them to something less accident-prone? I forget about them, and every time I look up Z Nation (one of my favourite programmes, probably look it up once or twice a year), it takes me ages to figure out how the heck I ended up on Amazon, and how to search on Google instead. I’d really like the default to STAY as the default I’ve selected, not randomly shoot me off somewhere else.
Thanks.
So, how might I switch between different search engines?
(Other than changing Opera’s settings)
Firefox has a quick and convenient pull down menu in the search box.
Now that’s a shame this doesn’t work with custom search engines anymore. I just want to use Ecosia again.
Me too!
I wanted to change my browser to duck duck go. Thanks for helping me out. Keep up the good word. Best of luck.
A browser is an application program that provides a way to look at and interact with all the information on the World Wide Web. Many types of a browser are available on the internet. you can use the Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer etc. Opera is the good Browser for using the internet. If your Internet Explorer is not working properly then please visit https://babasupport.org/browser/internet-explorer-customer-service/342