Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, and Vivaldi included

Jan 16, 2022 22:13 GMT  ·  By

A recent change made in Chromium makes it impossible for users to delete the default search engines regardless of the browser they have installed on their computers.

In other words, no matter if they are running Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Vivaldi, or any other browser, an option to remove the default search engines is no longer there.

The controversial Chromium change was first revealed on reddit a few days ago, but as it turns out, the whole thing has been intentional from the very beginning.

A Chromium engineer recently explained while deleting this option from browsers makes sense.

“Currently, you can delete a pre-populated search engine (e.g. Google, Bing, Baidu) in 2 clicks. Doing so is irrecoverably destructive because, even if you're knowledgeable enough to use the Add dialog to recreate a pre-populated entry, you can't set the suggest, new tab page, or other specialized URLs,” the message reads.

Browser issues

While the removal of this option was supposed to be as seamless as possible, it looks like some users out there ended up struggling with a problem causing the browser to automatically change the default search engine to another service.

In this Google Chrome support forum, many people confirm that in the latest versions of Google Chrome, the default search engine is changed to another service without any input on their side.

Justin Donnelly, the same Chromium engineer that proposed the removal of the said feature, says the issue is already being invested.

“We're looking into whether there's something we can do to address the root issue of people's default search engine being changed when they don't want that. But in the meantime, I'll restore the Delete option in the UI. It should return in either Chrome 98 or 99 (releasing in early Feb and early Mar, respectively),” he said.