Hello, this is my first "guide" and I'm not sure if it's placed correctly so please move it if not.
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Now that it's clear that google and all the other big search providers track you and hand out your data to the nsa etc, I wanted to use startpage.com as my default search engine in the android stock browser, but unfortunatly you cannot add any search engines inside the app.
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After some research I found a method that does let you add search engines though, and I wanted to share it with all of you:
1. Get APKTool (on Windows which I used, you can just download the gui based Tool) - please search the forum for the link
2. Grab your Browser.apk from /system/app/ and the framework-res.apk from /system/framework/ and put them into the apktool directory.
3. Install the framework-res.apk and then decompile the Browser.apk (both with/inside the apktool)
4. Open the following file in the browser directory created by apktool: /res/values/arrays.xml
5. Scroll down until you find an entry like this and copy/paste it below:
6. Edit the copy to whatever search engine you want to add. For example to add startpage.com:
If you dont want the mobile site:
7. Now scroll down further until you find:
8. Add the search engine you just added above (make sure the name matches that name you chose) inside a "<item></item>"-Tag. Example for Startpage.com:
9. Recompile the Browser.apk with the apktool.
10. Push it back onto the device inside /system/app/ and change rights/owner if necessary. (root/root with rw-r-r)
11. Reboot and now you should be able to choose the newly added search engine in the browser.
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Now that it's clear that google and all the other big search providers track you and hand out your data to the nsa etc, I wanted to use startpage.com as my default search engine in the android stock browser, but unfortunatly you cannot add any search engines inside the app.
---
After some research I found a method that does let you add search engines though, and I wanted to share it with all of you:
1. Get APKTool (on Windows which I used, you can just download the gui based Tool) - please search the forum for the link
2. Grab your Browser.apk from /system/app/ and the framework-res.apk from /system/framework/ and put them into the apktool directory.
3. Install the framework-res.apk and then decompile the Browser.apk (both with/inside the apktool)
4. Open the following file in the browser directory created by apktool: /res/values/arrays.xml
5. Scroll down until you find an entry like this and copy/paste it below:
Code:
<string-array name="duckduckgo">
<item>DuckDuckGo</item>
<item>duckduckgo.com</item>
<item>https://duckduckgo.com/favicon.ico</item>
<item>https://duckduckgo.com/?q={searchTerms}</item>
<item>UTF-8</item>
<item></item>
</string-array>Code:
<string-array name="startpage">
<item>Startpage</item>
<item>startpage.com</item>
<item>https://startpage.com/favicon.ico</item>
<item>https://startpage.com/do/m/mobilesearch?query={searchTerms}</item>
<item>UTF-8</item>
<item></item>
</string-array>Code:
<string-array name="startpage">
<item>Startpage</item>
<item>startpage.com</item>
<item>https://startpage.com/favicon.ico</item>
<item>https://startpage.com/do/search?query={searchTerms}</item>
<item>UTF-8</item>
<item></item>
</string-array>Code:
<string-array name="search_engines">Code:
<item>startpage</item>10. Push it back onto the device inside /system/app/ and change rights/owner if necessary. (root/root with rw-r-r)
11. Reboot and now you should be able to choose the newly added search engine in the browser.