With default settings, Windows 10 allows you to search the web right from the taskbar search box. The search uses Bing as the web search engine and opens search results in the default web browser of Windows 10.
As you likely know by now, there is no setting under Settings app or Control Panel to use Google as the default search in taskbar or Start menu search, instead of the default Bing search engine.
Enabling Google taskbar search in Chrome:
Step 1: The first step is to download and install Google Chrome browser on your Windows 10 PC.
Step 2: Once Chrome is installed, you need to set it as the default web browser.
To make Chrome as default, complete these steps:
- Open Settings app, navigate to System, Default apps,
- Scroll down to see web browser section
- Click on Edge or Spartan (or any other browser entry) to reveal Choose an app and then click Google Chrome to set it as default.
Step 3: Open your Chrome browser. Open Chrome Web store, search for Bing2Google extension, and then install the same.
From now on, whenever you type something in the taskbar search box, and click Go for web, you’ll see Google search results in the Chrome browser.
Enabling Google taskbar search in Firefox:
Step 1: First, download the latest version of Firefox Nightly build from this page of Mozilla, and then install the same on your PC. Note that you can install Firefox Nightly alongside the stable build without any issues.
NOTE: You won’t need to download and install the Nightly version of Firefox once Mozilla releases the final version of Firefox 42.
Step 2: After installing Firefox 42 or above version, open Firefox Options page. To open it, click the Open menu button and then click Options.
Step 3: On the left-pane, click Search to view all search related settings on the right-side.
Step 4: Now, under Default Search Engine section, select Google or any other search engine that you want to set as the default search in Windows 10 taskbar and Firefox search.
Step 5: Finally, enable the option titled Use this search engine for searches from Windows option, it’s not enabled already.
That’s it! Google should now be your default search engine in Windows 10 taskbar (for web search) as well as in the Firefox browser.