I like to think I’m definitely not a fanboy.
I don’t use Apple products, I find Firefox irritating and slow, and I have been happily using Windows Vista since it launched. When it comes to software I don’t tread the same path as most geeks.
Perhaps the biggest shock to fellow geeks is my choice of web browser.
When speaking to an on-line marketer recently he thought I was joking and refused to believe me! But I’m going to come clean, I use Internet Explorer.
With that out of the way we can get to the purpose of this blog post.
Like most browsers IE8 has a built in search bar that allows you to customise what provider you search with.
This is great and means that I no longer need to install the Google toolbar (To be honest, Google know enough about me already!) One slight niggle though is the fact you don’t seem to be able to set which “version” of Google you use. I’m in the UK so use (link: http://www.google.co.uk/ text: www.google.co.uk).
So, I had a bit of a poke around in my registry.
If you open “regedit” and navigate to the following entry…
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerSearchScopes
You will see a few different long numbers. Have a quick look inside these for the entry that specifies your google.com search provider.
There are a few different data fields but you only need to alter one of them. Edit the URL value and change the “.com” to a “.co.uk”
Save the registry, restart Internet Explorer, and any searches you make with the google provider should end up on the UK version of the site.