How to set different search engine in incognito mode?

Question

In incognito mode, I would like Chrome to use DuckDuckGo as the search engine (searches from the address bar / omnibox).

In normal mode, I would like to keep Google as the default search engine.

How can I do this?

Answer 1

To others who might still be looking for a solution, here's a simple hack.

1. First, create a shortcut for your browser on Desktop

2. Next, right-click on it, click properties, and then go to the shortcut tab

3. In the Target field, append the following lines to the existing text:

   For Chromium-based browsers like Google Chrome or Brave Browser,

   --incognito https://duckduckgo.com

   For Edge or Mozilla Firefox or Opera

   - private https://www.duckduckgo.com

   The final text might look something like this:

   "C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\brave.exe" --incognito https://duckduckgo.com

4. Next, set up a shortcut key to open the incognito tab. To do this, click on the Shortcut key text input (in the same properties window). Its default value would be None. Now, press the combination of keys you want as the shortcut. For example, if you want the default CTRL + SHIFT + N, then press this. Once the value of Target is set to what you want, save and close the window.

And that's it, you're done. Now whenever you press CTRL + SHIFT + N on your computer, it'll open an incognito window of your browser with the default search engine as DuckDuckGo.

The above steps are taken from this article.

Answer 2

Instead of hacking the Chrome browser, how about a much simpler fix?

In the "Search engines" section in Chrome settings chrome://settings/searchEngines, you can set a "Shortcut" for each search engine. But don't be deceived by the URL; they are in fact keyboard shortcuts.

I set my Shortcut for DuckDuckGo as ddg.

Now when I go to the search box, all I have to do is type "ddg" and I can now easily search with DuckDuckGo.

Another advantage of this solution is that it works with other search engines too!

Answer 3

I have solved this problem by writing a small tampermonkey script, which will redirect your search request from google to duckduckgo, if it detects that you are using incognito mode. (I tested it with Chrome 75.0.3770.142 on Linux)

Script: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/388055-redirect-google-search-requests-to-duckduckgo-incognito-only

However, it is more of a workaround than a solution.