You can use any search engine you want. There is a very large problem where malicious search engines are hijacking user's search engines to redirect them to spammy or virus filled search engines instead of legitimate ones.

You can follow the steps at Add or remove a search engine in Firefox to add a search engine you like, and set it as your default.

I know all that Tyler, in fact I said in my post that I had set another search engine as my default, and I have also deleted any and all versions of google, and blocked google cookies; BUT, why has Firefox forced google as default in the first place ?, Firefox is supposed to be anti-spy, NOT help the spy.

Google is the default search engine for Firefox in some countries. If you live in those countries and have a hijacked search, it will naturally get set to google.

Wurzelbumpkin said

IMPORTANT NOTE: For Firefox Quantum (v 57.0.1), the default search engine is aggressively changed to Google during update, disregarding your previous settings. In other words Firefox v57.0.1 has overruled your personal choice of default search engine and has instead placed as the default search engine a known spying organisation which tracks and sells as much of your private data as it can. I am losing confidence in the supposedly security and privacy guarantee of Mozilla Firefox. I have reset the default to another search engine and BLOCKED every type of google cookie I can think of, if after restarting firefox the default has once more reverted to google, it will be goodbye to the in collusion with the spies Firefox for ever. What have you got say for yourselves Mozilla support ?.

That is a misleading statement in itself. I have multiple search options on my settings and I can choose from either of them. I think this is a situation where you downloaded or click on malware to cause the situation your in or you installed something else that asked "set Google" search and you clicked yes and that is how you ended where your at. So you need to do some homework and check your Add/Remove programs and see if something was installed there to redirect to Google and check your Addons as well as it can install a addon that will redirect all to Google. So this from what it sounds like unless it was a Country locked Search Engine would seem to stem from using "Express" install that loaded a Google search or malware infestation.

WestEnd. It is NOT a misleading statement, the IMPORTANT NOTE: part of my post was copied and pasted from Ixquick search engine. I myself was unaware of Firefox resetting the default to google until I read that warning on Ixquick, I had however previously posted on here another question re why is it that every time I open Firefox I find google cookies pre-set even though I NEVER EVER use google. Nor has my browser been hijacked, I have checked, and I have the best and very expensive anti-virus, anti-ransom, anti-hijack etc installed. I have deleted the google search engine from my list of multi search engines, and I have set the Firefox options to block google cookies, so for now the problem is solved. BUT, my original question remains unanswered, why did Firefox deliberately set google as the default in the first place ?. I ask this merely to highlight it to the vast majority of people who resent being spied upon and having their personal data farmed for the profit of the spies, and use Firefox because it is supposed to be built around privacy and security.

Firefox dropped Google as the global default search starting Firefox 34.0 as en-US had Yahoo and other locals had new different defaults. https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice-and-innovation-on-the-web/

Firefox since 57.0 Release went back to using Google as default for en-US locale and for Hong Kong and Taiwan. https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/11/14/firefox-features-google-as-default-search-provider-in

Like last time when the default search engine changed you got changed to the new default depending on what locale you had and you could then change it to use another search engine by default.

The reason for going back to Google is Mozilla dropped the Yahoo contract with en-US Firefox due to Verizon not holding up its end of the agreement. Yahoo/Verizon is not happy and is claiming that Mozilla improperly terminated the agreement. https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/12/05/mozilla-files-cross-complaint-against-yahoo-holdings-and-oath/