Change default search engine

When first setting up the FP, Android asked me which search engine I’d like to use. I chose DuckDuckGo, and it is now the search engine at the bottom of the home screen. But what can I do if I change my mind? I can’t find an option to change the search engine in the settings.

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I use the FP3 so I’m not sure if this will work on the FP4, search for “Assist App” in the settings and see if you can change it there

Thanks, but this only changes the app that opens at long press on the home button. The search bar stays the same.

Oh… The next thing I’d try then is to just uninstall DuckDuckGo or disable it, that should prompt the phone to ask you again

I uninstalled DuckDuckGo. Android replaced the DuckDuckGo bar with the Google bar. I reinstalled DuckDuckGo, but the Google bar stays. :sob:

Any luck with this here? …

Already tried all of that. Chrome has nothing to do with it, the assistant neither (see above) and it is not a replaceable widget. I have now opened a support ticket.

Does the launcher have it in its settings perhaps?

Nein. Keine Einstellungen dafür
Minimalistischer launcher3. Da geht nix.

No

I’ll wait for the answer by Fairphone support, if they can’t help me, I’ll switch to Lawnchair launcher.

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Support answered:

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I just created an account on this forum to complain about this issue.
I choose Duckduckgo as my default search engine for the search bar during setup. Then I accidentally changed it to Google by clicking something like “search widget” in the Google App.
I spent an hour trying to change it back to Duckduckgo and then stumbled across this thread. It’s super frustrating that you can’t change it back to Duckduckgo, especially since it was already working.
Hope this gets fixed soon. I don’t want to reset the phone for this. :triumph:

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I’ve installed Lawnchair by now. You can easily configure it to look almost exactly like Quickstart (the Fairphone launcher) but with more configuration options. Maybe you also want to give it a try. No strings attached, you can easily switch between both launchers.

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Hello,
I’ve also created an account for this and I’ll send the question to Fairphone technical support.
Same case as the other: I choosed DDG as the default search engine, then removed it to install the version from the F-Droid store, which triggered the cursed reset. I guess that the simple solution would be to re-run the system app “Search Engine Selector” (v1.30.337808798 on my FP4) but nothing seems to be able to trigger its launch…
Also, being privacy-concerned, I’m not a huge fan of installed third-party home launcher that can see each and every home activity just to fix this (even if I see the irony of using a Google OS while saying this).

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As Lawnchair is a well-known open source app, the danger of it compromising your personal data is very low. Someone would have noticed by now. Closed source apps are more risky in that regard.

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Maybe something like App Manager. Unfortunately I think it requires root to launch activities (or does it? worth testing).

Indeed, I was not aware of its open-sourceness (the app is archived on F-Droid and from what I see the dev team is working hard on a complete re-write based/for Android 12).
Thanks for the highlight!

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my lawnchair reborn launcher does not call home

with reborn, I mean the new one from izzy. Not the old one from 2019

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Same here. Does it help to add hearts or should we write support issues? BTW, some background: Android Choice Screen It may well be Google ill will to make this impossible. The EU forced them to let user’s choose but they may have forgotten to tell them that users also should be able re-choose when, after sneezing, their choice evaporated.

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