Several reports have appeared online claiming that on some new Lumia smartphones it is no longer possible to select Google as the default search engine. To be clear majority of Nokia Lumia devices out there offer this options to users, this change might have something to do with the fact that Nokia’s devices and services business is now owned by Microsoft. The option is missing on Lumia 630 and Lumia 930, two smartphones that shipped after Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s hardware business.
This must not be confused with the behavior of the physical search button on Windows Phone devices. Microsoft has never allowed users to change default search engine for the physical button so it only uses Bing. The change could be made within Internet Explorer though where users could use the search bar to search on Google instead of Bing.
Existing Lumia devices don’t appear to be affected by this change, even those that have already been updated to Windows Phone 8.1. Testing on unlocked Lumia 630 and Lumia 930 units did reveal that the option to change default search engine to Google is missing.
On the other hand Google does allow users to change the default search engine in Chrome on Android, they can use Ask, Yahoo or Bing if they don’t want to use Google. Apple too offers a choice between Google, Bing and Yahoo in the mobile Safari browser on iOS.