Remove Ask.com as Default Search in URL Field
The Problem
Somehow ask.com toolbar was installed on my computer recently. It defaulted all automatic searches in the URL field to their engine. Not that there is anything completely wrong with ask.com, but I simply prefer Google’s results.
I wanted to go back to Google search results for any mistypes in the URL bar and other search features. However, removing the toolbar as a program, removing the program directory, and resetting all defaults in Firefox / Internet Explorer did not allow to to escape their results. Trust me I tried everything in each programs options, to no avail.
Ask.com Solution
Editors Note (December 18, 2008) – Ask.com formally responded. Pretty cool.
Peter, I’m a Product Manager at Ask. Changing your default search settings is simple with some browsers and more complex with others. We created a tool to simplify the process of removing Ask as the default search engine in your browser address bar. Please click on the URL listed below and run the file to remove Ask from your address bar. If you still experience issues after running this tool, please send an email to AskToolbarBugs@ask.com
Link to the executable file:
http://media.ask.com/media/toolbar/tools/AskSearchUtility.exe
I’m sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Chris
My Solution
Internet Explorer 6 (presumably 7 too)
- Go to Control Panel in Windows itself
- Click on Internet Properties
- Click on General
- Click on Search settings
- Set new default and delete ask.com
Firefox
- Open a new tab or window.
- Type “about:config” and hit enter, this brings up the all powerful settings of Firefox.
- Agree to the warning that you could mess things up
- Find keyword.url, you probably should not change anything else
- Double click and change keyword.url string to something else like http://www.google.com/search?q=
- Note that you cannot just put in the web site domain, you must put in the parameters before your search query. So find your favorite search engine, do a search and grab all the text up to your actual search results. So that a search for “test” in Google returns this, http://www.google.com/search?q=test, but all you need to input into the keyword.url field is http://www.google.com/search?q=
Finally, yes I know you can also manage default pages via the default settings under Tools > Options and also Manage Search Engines for the default search area, but those do not remove the default search if something is typed in wrong in the URL line. I mistype a lot or use the URL field to get the No. 1 listing automatically. I believe this is in the only way to stop ask.com and other search engines from becoming your default URL search choice.
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I tried changing the keyword.url string as suggested and it didn’t work. But then I sorted by “value” and changed all of the websites that displayed ask.com to http://www.google.com/search?q= and that seemed to work for me (the additional two that I changed to google started with browser.startup and startup.homepage_override). Hope this helps…I”m finally rid of the crappy ask home page.
Thank you, this was very useful
. Had the same problem, I started erasing all the values that said “ask.com” in the registry and the files in my computer (the toolbar installed itself somehow in the last week), but couldn’t get rid of it @ firefox.
.
Now I could
Thank you very much again.
Hello from Spain. I’d like to thank you for the solution; it was esasy but it had to be known or found, and Google pointed to your site. Thanks a lot. As I suffered the same problem, I decided to publish it in my own blog (in Spanish) just to spread the word.
I write this comment to you because Blogger does not sends trackback or pingbacks.
Best regards.
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Location+bar+search
Thanks for the great post, it took me forever to get rid of that dang ask.com stuff. The link above is the same directions from the Firefox website.
It also points out that if you would like Firefox to guess at your web page and direct you there for example typing in MSN will autofill in the www and .com part and take you right to http://www.msn.com insted of searching google for msn as stated above. just change the option of keyword.enabled to False
Thanks for the great post and quick and effective fix. the end of ask’s woeful attempts and the return of google when I commit a typo.
Even better and safer:
On the about:config page in Firefox, all of the Firefox settings are displayed, including some that are not accessible from regular setting locations, such as Tools/Options. Settings which were changed from their default value are bold. If Ask.com set itself as the default URL search engine, keyword.URL will be bold. If you want Google back (the default factory setting), simply right-click the line (the one starting with keyword.URL) and select Reset from the menu. Google is back (and the default setting includes more parameters then simply “…/search?q=”).
After that, I typed “ask” in the filter box above (a kind of search box, you could type “keyword” for instance in order to locate keyword.URL quickly) several other lines appeared with a value of “Ask”. Two of them were bold, and resetting those returned the value to “Google”, so presumably “Ask” meant “Ask.com”. Be aware that most of the other lines which appear really want “Ask” as their value, and in theses cases “ask” doesn’t mean “Ask.com” (they possibly mean “ask me what to do”).
Hope this helps. Thanks to Peter Boyd for pointing out where the problem were (about:config didn’t come to my mind before reading this page), his solution works, but wasn’t optimal for me.
Tom
I did as suggested and then searched on “value” and found these three needed setting to “Google” from “Ask”.
browser.search.defaultenginename
browser.search.order.1
browser.searchselectedengine
Now it’s goodbye Ask and welcome home Google!
Thanks for the invaluable info!
Bob
Peter, I’m a Product Manager at Ask. Changing your default search settings is simple with some browsers and more complex with others. We created a tool to simplify the process of removing Ask as the default search engine in your browser address bar. Please click on the URL listed below and run the file to remove Ask from your address bar. If you still experience issues after running this tool, please send an email to AskToolbarBugs@ask.com
Link to the executable file:
http://media.ask.com/media/toolbar/tools/AskSearchUtility.exe
I’m sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Chris
Thanks Chris. Nice to see a response, even if it ends my great tip. I guess this makes it darn easy.
Thank you. Finally a solution that works! I didn’t have any problems with ask.com so far, but after their nearly unremoval default search I probably won’t ever use ‘em again…
I find it repulsive that a company like Ask would pull garbage like this. I appreciate their help in removing their worthless tool from MY computer, but I would think they’d take a note and not force their horrible search engine on anyone.
There’s a reason Google is number 1, Ask, and it is most likely because they didn’t pull crap like this.
Thanks for the fast and effective fix. This had been bugging me for days.
About TIME! This was irritating me for WEEKS! I was getting extremely frustrated and had spent hours trying to get rid of that ask.com — pffft’!!!!
When will companies realize that hijacking people’s options makes people hate them? Now when I see ask.com – I shiver, and curl up one side of my lip. Who knows how many other people feel that way now!
Good riddence to ask.com on my browser!!!
Here is another way I also hate the Ask.com websearch:
If this is the thing where it loads an “Ask” search when it can’t find a webpage (mistyped URL or server error) then I had this same problem and figured out the fix yesterday.
Put ‘about:config’ in the address bar to enter Firefox’s configuration page. Look out for The ‘keyword.url’ setting, and change it back to one of the recommendations shown on this page http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keyword.URL
The first one worked for me. I now get a Google result instead of an Ask one if the page fails to load. If you’d rather see an error message than Google results, then look for the ‘keyword.enabled’ setting and set it to ‘false.’
If the fix works for you, then please post it anywhere else where you’ve seen this question.
After spending days trying to find the register key to erase ask.com as the default searcher in IE when misstyping a site, I found the answer and would like to share with you people:
After removing the Toolbar in the Program Files > Ask Toolbar it is still will be remaing a .dll file named Defaut Searhcer. Erase it. Problem is solved.
Hope I could help you people. It was simpler that we could imagine… Good Luck!
Recently I had to reinstall Nereo 8 and forgot to uncheck the Ask Toolbar option. Now it is in my IE7 and Firefox 3. I have removed programs, rebooted, and it is still in both. No matter what I do it will not be removed. I have contacted Ask.com but had no response. Any ideas here for me? Thx!
Thank you for the solution, this was one of the most annoying things that actually made me HATE ask toolbar because I wrongfully installed it and then I can’t get rid of it anymore, I think I will need time to forget about ask
Thank you for this easy fix. I thought I’d mess my computer up (again) before I found an answer to this annoying problem.
Thank you so much for adding this tutorial!! It worked perfectly and Ask free!!
Yeah the about:config thing works the best, I tried everything else first. I sorted everything by “Status, which which showed all the bold “user set” settings first- then went through the list and found everything that had “ask” in the “Value” column and replaced it with the default by right-clicking and hitting “reset”.
And talk about reverse marketing… DO NOT WANT!
To get rid of the Ask.com toolbar in Firefox. go to Tools/options/main/manage add-ons/disable Ask.com toolbar. Simple.
I think that you should be able to charge the company (ask.com in this case) for removing this type of malware. Now you have to carefully watch every thing that you install to make sure that you don’t let it install this crap by default.
Toolbars like this are for noobs that don’t know how to use a computer…
What really chaps my a$$ is that I went through add/remove programs and removed the toolbar application but that didn’t remove these keys for firefox.
dude you are beautifull i’m trying for months to get the stupid ask.com search engine to diappear and this did it.
thank you
To Product Manager Chris:
Your advertising strategy of causing other software to install the ask toolbar and change the default search engine sucks.
As a result of having to use this (very useful) fix here, I’ll be making a point to tell everyone I know how much ask sucks.
Your money was not well spent on your advertising campaign. Maybe you should invest it in a decent search engine instead.
—-
And to Peter:
Thanks for the great information.
Removing AskSearch folder from C:\Program Files is worked for me. Thank Nat.
Thank you for the solution.
DAMN ask.com!
Si a alguien se lo ownea el buscador de ASK.com y le cambia el buscador que tienen , acá esta la solucion http://tinyurl.com/a3xafq
I was able to remove ASK as my homepage and reset it to Google though “Internet Options” under the “Tools” menu. I was then able to remove most of the ASK software through the “Add Remove Programs” option in Control Panel (Windows XP, Home Edition. The problem was that if I made a typo in entering a URL, ASK search engine would still pop up.
The only way to correct this that worked for me (IE7) is to click on the magnifying glass icon at the top of my homepage (Google in my case). Click on “Change search defaults” to whatever search engine you wish to use as your default. If you wish to do so, you can delete ASK at the same time. This reply came to me courtesy of ASK tech support and I thought I would pass it on.
After uninstalling the ask.com toolbar through windows, my browser (Firefox) still kept doing the redirect when I tried to use Google. The final fix was the about:config solution posted by the previous folks. Thanks!
Hallelujah! After weeks of trying to remove the irritant Ask.com, finally a reprive!! I inadvertently forgot to uncheck the “install Ask.com as default search engine” when downloading another program.
I have never really had an issue with Ask, I’ve always just used Google; but after this stunt, I will steer clear of Ask.com forever. Great marketing ploy guys, force people into using your site…you are clearly not creative enough to come up with a plan to legitimately bring in new customers.
I have always, and will always continue to use Google.
Oh BTW, I just deleted the Ask.com folder from my Program Folders in my C drive.
Thanks for letting me vent!
This is the solution i was looking for. I have not tried it yet, but i think it will do my job. Thanks for the solution. Expecting more in future.