Ahh, Firefox – so customizeable.

Unfortunately, it still has a way to go in terms of intuitiveness of design.

Case and point: it’s a breeze to add search engines to Firefox with a single mouse click using the Mozilla addons page. Unfortunately, it’s not so easy to delete old or unwanted engines from the list. Not only can you not right-click on an engine to get the option to remove it, but an option to edit the list of engines doesn’t appear anywhere in the entire interface!

Here’s how you remove those unwanted engines from your list:

  • Browse to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins
  • Delete the 2 filenames that correspond to the engine that you want to remove. There will be both a .src file and image file. (either a .png or .gif)

If you can’t find any applicable looking filenames, the engine may be installed in your profile area. If so, do this:

  • Browse to C:\Documents and Settings\edward\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[PROFILE ID]\searchplugins (where [PROFILE ID] is a random string of characters used as your profile identifier)
  • Delete the 2 filenames that correspond to the engine that you want to remove. There will be both a .src file and image file. (either a .png or .gif)

After you remove the files, restart Firefox and voila, the engines are now gone.

Update: The SearchPluginHacks extension will allow you to delete engines by right-clicking them. The extension is only 4k, so it shouldn’t delay your load time too much. Depending on your XP skill level, this may be an easier option for you, while a more experienced user may find the occasional manual delete process more convenient.