How do I set Ecosia in Edge Chromium using a GPO?

Group Policy templates allow you to control Edge Chromium’s browser settings. This guide is for IT admin to set Ecosia as the default search engine across multiple machines. 

If you already use GPOs to control Edge Chromium’s settings please refer to Step 4 and update your existing settings.

Alternatively you can download Microsoft’s ADMX files from here. 

STEP 1:

Copy the admx and adml files to your central store:

• Local: %systemroot%\policyDefinitions (normally C:\Windows\policyDefinitions) 
• Domain: %systemroot%\sysvol\domain\policies\PolicyDefinitions (normally C:\Windows\sysvol\domain\policies\PolicyDefinitions) 

For more information about creating a central store for your GPOs please refer here.

STEP 2:

Open the Group Policy administration tool. You can start the group policy editor by typing gpedit.msc into the Windows command bar. 

Navigate to the group policy rule that controls Edge Chromium’s settings, right click and click on “edit”

STEP 3:

Depending on the target of your policy (LOCAL_MACHINE or CURRENT_USER), expand either the “Computer Configuration” or “User Configuration” file browser. 

Navigate to - Administrative Templates → Microsoft Edge → Default search provider.

The “Default search provider” folder has all the required settings that need to be changed.

STEP 4:

A few settings here need to be defined (in no particular order)

“Enable the default search provider”

Set this to Enabled

“Default search provider name”

Set this to Enabled and enter the following value – Ecosia

“Default search provider keyword”

Set this to Enabled and enter the following value – ecosia.org

“Default search provider search url”

Set this to Enabled and enter the following value: https://www.ecosia.org/search?q={searchTerms}&addon=edgegpo

STEP 5:

Once this has been completed, ensure that you have the GPO rule linked to your domain and that you have specified the user groups/OU’s that this rule applies to.

In order for the GPO rules to take immediate effect, you would need to open a CMD window and type “gpupdate/force” to apply the settings on the end users devices. Otherwise the new GPO settings will apply after a reboot. 

DISCLAIMER

Edge Chromium also has a GPO rule called “Mange Search Engines”. This GPO rule can be used to configure a list of up to 10 search engines for the end user to choose from. 

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