Mint Chrome and Firefox packages hijack search settings

[Josh]

Since I installed Mint on one computer several years ago and installed Chrome I found that every time I type the word "google" as the first word in the omnibar in Chrome the screen switches to a customized search.

If I put in some keywords and hit enter my browser goes to a broken search results page with no results and a Mint logo in the top left.

It took me years to figure out what was causing this but I have worked it out.

When you install Chrome or Firefox on Mint, your proprietary package replaces the default Google search engine with your branded Google search, which is broken.

Subsequently the setting is synchronized using the user's Google account so the broken search engine is also used on every other computer where they sign into Chrome.

Here's the workaround:

Go to:

 [WRENCH] -> Settings… -> Basics -> Search:

Remove the entry "Google (default)".