So you woke up one day, turned on your computer, and opened up your web browser to find that your home page had been changed to Bing.com. You’re outraged, annoyed, and frustrated. Don’t be. It’s a simple process to set it back to which ever search engine you prefer.
Before we start, I would like to explain to you how you’ve ended up with Bing instead of the search engine you are used to. Microsoft deployed a new version of Internet Explorer (IE8) over Windows Update, and by default it had its homepage set to Bing.com. This means that if you had it set to automatically install updates for you, or manually chose to upgrade, after you were done you had Bing.com set as your homepage. It is also possible that you were using Microsoft’s Live Search as your search engine which was replaced by Bing.
Now that we have that out of the way, here is how you set your homepage back to your prefered engine. For these examples I will be using Google however you are free to use you’re favourite.
First start up Internet Explorer, if your home page comes up as Bing.com immediately then you need to change the default engine. If you are only getting directed to Bing after searching from your search bar then skip to the next part of this guide.
On the main menu, select Tools and then Internet Options.
In the highlighted box you will see that your home page has been set to http://www.bing.com, simply change that to your desired engine and hit OK. Now if you need to change the default engine for your search bar, click the drop down arrow next to the magnifying glass and you should see Google in that drop down list. If not, you will have to hit “Find more providers…” and select it from the page you are presented with.
Alternate Method:
Since a few people have been unsuccessful with the method above I wanted to provide antoher method that will work on any browser. Open up My Computer and go to C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc and open the file hosts. It should ask what you want to use to open it, just select Notepad. Then add the bottom add:
74.125.127.100 www.bing.com 74.125.127.100 bing.com
Now save the file, and restart your web-browser if it is still running. Now when your browser tries to go to Bing.com it will be directed to Google instead.
That’s all there is to it, you are now free of Bing!
A seasoned Senior Solutions Architect with 18 years of experience in technology design and implementation. Renowned for innovative solutions and strategic insights, he excels in driving complex projects to success. Outside work, he is a passionate fisherman and fish keeper, specializing in planted tanks.
please remove me,i dont want to be with bing,3 hrs trying. i cant get my site off bing. urgent help needed it said free im scared of hidden cost. how can i delete my files with bing?????
on windows xp
I found it was the updates that put bing as default
so I uninstalled the updates. To do so
Carefully select and then copy the following command:
%windir%\ie8\spuninst\spuninst.exe
Click Start, and then click Run.
In the Open box, type Cmd.exe, and then press ENTER.
Right-click inside the Cmd.exe window, and then click Paste to paste the command that you copied in step 1.
Press ENTER to uninstall Internet Explorer 8.
When the uninstall program is finished, restart your computer