2012-01-12 Finally fed up with Mint Google Search

Post date: Jan 12, 2012 3:36:33 PM

I've been using Mint Linux for some time now. Essentially it takes the things that made Ubuntu popular and makes them the focus so you get an easy to use and maintain desktop system. The only gripe I have had was that the default searches in Firefox go through a Mint custom page. It is still giving the same results that it gets out of Google but with an advertising bonus to the Mint people. I am not paying for Mint, so I have been very reluctant to change that, since I want them to get some sort of payment. Today it was too much for me though, so I finally tweaked it and here is how, from a root console or with sudo:

# cp /usr/lib/firefox-addons/searchplugins/google.xml ./google.xml.original

# wget http://mxr.mozilla.org/firefox/source/browser/locales/en-US/searchplugins/google.xml?raw=1 -O google.xml.fixed

# cat google.xml.fixed > /usr/lib/firefox-addons/searchplugins/en-US/google.xml

# cat google.xml.fixed > /usr/lib/firefox-addons/searchplugins/google.xml