Raspbian is a solid distribution for the Raspberry Pi, but it can be a little unintuitive for the more straightforward tasks. For example, the included web browser, Epiphany, doesn’t make it easy to change the default search provider from DuckDuckGo. The good news is that it can be switched with a little tinkering.
All the regular avenues of changing the provider: the browser’s own settings menu, gconf and about:flags proved dead ends. Eventually, I came across a post by user called “Mequa” on the Raspberry Pi forums that explains the process in detail. I’ve taken the liberty of replicating the instructions below:
First, you’ll need to edit a schema file, which you can do by firing up a terminal and typing:
sudo leafpad /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/org.gnome.epiphany.gschema.xml
Then locate this block of XML:
'https://www.google.com/search?q=%s' URL Search Search string for keywords entered in the URL bar.
The line <default>'https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%s&t=raspberrypi'</default> is what you need to change. Replace https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%s&t=raspberrypi with https://www.google.com.au/#q=%s. It’s important to use the local version of Google, otherwise you’ll be redirected to the Google home page when you type in search commands, rather than results.
It’d be nice if this was all you had to do, but there are a couple more steps. While still at the terminal, enter:
sudo apt-get install libglib2.0-bin
sudo glib-compile-schemas /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas
Then all you have to do is restart Epiphany. Of course, you can use any search engine you like, you just have to find the right URL and query string combination to use.
Need Help Changing Epiphany’s Default Search Engine [Raspberry Pi forums]
Comments
3 responses to “How To Change The Raspberry Pi’s Epiphany Browser To Use Google”
Two weeks ago this hack would have been absolutely worthless because you would have to be insane or desperate to use a RPi as a web browser. The RPi2 rocks though.
Many thanks, I spent too much time for this simple setting. Download many bytes form the Internet use some wizards commands to make a basic change authorized by all browsers. Now it is obvious that devs are building a stupid world.
This worked just fine on my raspberry pi2. Thanks.
I’m using the RP 2 as a laptop replacement. I’m used to Linux, but the I’m not amused that epiphany does not let you configure this setting in a normal and easy way (as defined in: not having to use a text editor and CLI). Totally unacceptable! I’m deinstalling it and going to use firefox. Why do all components that come with an OS set as as standard have to suck so bad? Is it because if they would not be set as defaul that nobody would ever use them because they suck so bad????
Thanks, brah! Works like a charm!