Use Google SSL as Default Search Engine

Posted by: Mobo. Filed Under: Mini Post | No Comment

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a protocol that helps provide secure communications on the Internet for services like web browsing, email, instant messaging, and data transfer. When you look through SSL, search queries and search traffic is encrypted so they can not be read by either party intermediaries such as employers and service providers (ISP).

The differences if using Google SSL
  • SSL encrypts the communication channel between Google and a searcher’s computer.
  • Search over SSL is supported only on Google web search. Integrated results like images and maps, and clicking those results will take you out of encrypted search mode.
  • As another layer of privacy, SSL search turns off a browser’s referrers.
  • May be slightly slower than the regular Google search because your computer needs to first establish a secure connection to Google.

Google Search SSL

How to set Google SSL as default on Firefox
  1. Open Firefox. In addressbar, type about:config and hit enter. If there’s a warning, just click the button.
  2. In the Filter field, write keyword. In the results that come up, double click keyword.URL
  3. In the popup window, enter the following URL: 
    https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=
  4. Hit OK. Restart browser
How to set Google SSL as default on Chrome
  1. Open Chrome. Right click in address bar and hit Edit Search Engines.
  2. Click Add and enter the following: 
    Name: Google Encrypted
Keyword: googenc
URL: https://encrypted.google.com/search?{google:acceptedSuggestion}{google:originalQueryForSuggestion}sourceid=chrome&ie={inputEncoding}&q=%s
  3. Hit OK.
  4. In the list of search engines, select Google Encrypted and hit Make Default button

If you want to retain both versions of Google (can’t see why you would) and keep the non-HTTPS version default, do not make Encrypted version default. Instead, type googenc [tab] query when you need to search on the SSL version of Google.