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How to quickly switch search engines

Did you know you can use alternate search engines without changing your default search engine?

In the Chrome Browser you can add different search engines and quickly toggle between them by editing the Keywords for them in your search engine list. 


  1. Right click on your Omnibar and click Edit search engines...

Edit Search Engines
  1. Look for the DuckDuckGo entry and select it
  2. The middle column enter a short and memorable keyword, like du for instance
DuckDuckGo Entry
  1. Click Done to close the modal window
In the Omnibar, you can now just type du + Space on your keyboard to toggle DuckDuckGo. Then, just type a search term and off you go.
If DuckDuckGo does not exist in your list of search engines, you can easily add it.
  1. Right click on your Omnibar and click Edit search engines...
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the Other search engines section and look for Add a new search engine
  3. Enter DuckDuckGo for the search engine name, du (or other) for the keyword, and https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%s&t=canonical for the URL
  4. Click Done to close the modal window

Try adding the following new search engines to quickly search from the Omnibar using a short keyword:


Google Drivedrvhttps://drive.google.com/drive/search?q=%s
Gmailmailhttps://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/#search/%s
Google Mapsmaphttps://www.google.com/maps/search/%s?hl=en&source=opensearch
YouTubeythttps://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s&page={startPage?}&utm_source=opensearch

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