Default Search Provider URL broken for Google in MDM managed Microsoft Edge

Question

We set the default search provider URL and URL for suggestions to Google via Intune/MEM (like I suspect many organisations do) and we've been running this way for over a year with no issues. All of a sudden every single search query is appended with "oq=" and then my search/keywords again which in turn is messing up the search. For example

If I wanted to search "hello" my search query ends up being "hellooq=hello" - WTH has caused this all of a sudden?!

Interestingly if I revert the Intune/MEM config profile and instead allow the user to override, you can then manually set the search provider to Google and it works as expected - I have no idea what's going and surely this is a bug?

Any ideas?

• I've tried all of the expected, resetting browser settings etc - keep in mind these are MEM/MDM managed devices and we have total control over them. I have confirmed this issue is affecting all devices in our organisation.

Answer 1

@Anonymous , our policy forces the search engine so it is applied under Computer Configuration > Microsoft Edge > Default Search Provider > Default search provider URL

As suggested above, I originally tested https://www.google.com/search?q={searchTerms} which worked and then changed to https://www.google.co.uk/search?q={searchTerms} which also works.

Answer 2

@Gary (GD) - Your suggestion has fixed the search issue for me although for some reason my managed favourites have been removed, strange and annoying - Especially when I am continually trying to encourage colleagues and clients to adopt Edge instead of other browsers...

Answer 3

Hi all,

Thanks @Gary (GD) that has fixed my issue - I can confirm that the below settings are working as expected

Default Search Provider search URL to: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q={searchTerms}
Default search provider URL for suggestions: {google:baseURL}complete/search?output=chrome&q={searchTerms}
Default Search provider name: Google
Configure new tab page URL: https://www.google.co.uk/

I haven't heard anything on Microsoft fixing this issue or updating the MDM policy info but the above all works as expected now, hope this helps someone else!

Answer 4

Today it works as usual again. Not sure what happened. Only update I got is on 25. February, which was is following: KB5010342
https://support.microsoft.com/nb-no/topic/8-februar-2022-kb5010342-os-bygg-19042-1526-19043-1526-og-19044-1526-bd5c4434-bec4-42e9-991d-5810d4ec52d9

Screenshot from last week of Google search engine setup, when it trough "q=" and double search frase, and from now, when it works, is attached. Seems same.
Also today, I am at the office, not sure if network may have an impact?

Answer 5

Thanks for the update @Igor K - going to leave this thread open a little longer given I haven't heard anything official yet otherwise will mark as answered

Thanks all