Like most other popular Android launchers, Pixel Launcher has a universal search feature that can explore your phone’s settings, apps, contacts, and online results, all in one convenient place. Recently launched Android 14 QPR 2 Beta 3 has a new version of the said launcher and a pretty cool hidden settings menu called “Search Engine”. Its description is pretty clear and direct: “Select the app you will use to search the web. This will affect the search and content on the home screen.
It’s all conjecture at this point, but it looks like Pixel devices may soon be able to switch their system-wide search engine from Google to something else like Bing or DuckDuckGo. The information surfaced on Twitter from @Nail_Sadykov, who is a well-known industry whistleblower, and the thread also features some similar interesting findings related to the Chrome browser. Apparently, users have found similar “search engine choice” flags in the browser and accompanying text suggesting that setting such flags would affect the “first run” experience, giving the user a choice of search engine. research.
Of course, this opens the door to all kinds of possible speculation, but we’d like to remind you that Google is currently involved in a major antitrust case and being sued by the US Department of Justice and the attorneys general of eight states. The case alleges that Google, which has a 90% to 95% monopoly on the search engine market, operates a monopoly by blocking nearly every avenue through which consumers might find a different search engine. You can see how this could be argued, given that the search giant is still paying $10 billion a year to Apple to keep Google as the default in iOS.
We believe this new move by Google could be linked to the growing legal pressure. Furthermore, we have to wonder if this is the last avenue of attack on Google’s alleged “monopoly”, considering the ongoing battle for the Play Store.
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