Google eliminated From the Chromium code base, the ability to delete the default search engines. In the configurator in the Search Engine Management section (Chrome: // Settings / Searchengines), it is no longer possible to delete items from the default search engines list (Google, Bing, Yahoo). The change began to act starting from the release of Chromium 97 and also touched all browsers based on it, including new The issues of Microsoft Edge, Opera and Brave (Vivaldi still remains on the Chromium 96 engine).
In addition to hiding the removal button, the browser is also limited to editing the search engine parameters, which now allow you to change only the name and keywords, but block the change of the URL with the query parameters. At the same time, the removal and editing feature of additional search engines added by the user is saved.
As the reason for the removal and changing the default search engine settings, the default recovery settings are difficult to restore after imprudent deletion – the search engine by default can be removed into one click, after which the operation of contextual prompts, the pages of the new tab and other possibilities tied to Appeal to search engines. At the same time, to restore remote records, it is not enough to use the Add user search engine button, and the time-consuming operation is required for the regular user, the initial parameter transfer operation from the installation archive, which requires editing profile files.
Developers considered the possibility of adding the possible consequences of deletion or could implement a dialogue to add the default search engine to simplify the recovery of the settings, but in the end it was decided to simply disable the removal button. The default search engine deletion function could be useful for full disabling access to external sites when set in the address bar or to block changes made to the search engine settings of malicious additions, for example trying to redirect entry of key queries in the address bar to your site.