Step 1:

Type about:config into the Firefox address bar. This will take you to the config warning page that says “This might void your warranty.” However, this is the advanced system settings area of Firefox, so don’t go messing around with stuff unless you’re a expert.

With that said, Click the “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button.

Step 2:

In the Filter box, Type in keyword.URL

Under Preference Name, keyword.URL should pop up. Right-Click it and Select Modify.

Step 3:

The default URL is likely Bing, just erase it. Now all you need to do is Paste in the following URL code that matches the search engine you would like the bar to use.

  For Google: http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&q=
  For Bing: http://www.bing.com/results.aspx?q=
  For Yahoo:  http://www.search.yahoo.com/search?p=

You can also use a custom search engine of your choice, you’ll just need to get the correct URL code for it.

Once entered, Click the OK button.

Done!

Changes should take effect immediately, to test it out open a new window (Ctrl+N) and type a search query into the address bar.

Barb (I'm using Firefox 4.0.1 on top of Windows XP Professional)

ok, tried that. bing wasn't listed as the url default..some other thing was.....did the paste anyways and then did a search for bing on the whole about:config list and changed the one place it was search engine 3 ... i modified that by changing "bing" to "xxx"..aparently you can't delete from that list .. but still same issues .exists...

(note that just typing config will make firefox goto bing to search for "config".. you have to put in the whole "about:config" to get where the first reply tells you to go)

hence for me problem not solved...running windows 7 and firefox 5.0

Thank you so much moose53! Your instructions are great!

I decided to take some time and provide screenshots of the steps moose53 nicely provided to us all. Now everybody can have a visual illustration of the given instructions. Images go according to steps. Hope it helps!