Really? Is there no way around that? Ie just change your browser search settings? I was looking to try out mint, cuz Ubuntu is leaving something to be desired these days.
It's just a simple package that's installed with Firefox. The parent is just making it seem like a huge deal, but it's trivial to remove the package and/or change your default search provider.
I eventually got it, but I did end up doing the registry and mucking out some bits in /etc. Then I figured, "hey, I haven't tried Debian yet." So that's probably my next step... but it's looking like if you want it done right you're going to have to compile it yourself :/
From there you just have to click the icon of the one you want. They should put them at the top of that page and not the bottom though (I added the anchor to the bottom of the page).
Fair enough, but I had an edge case where I wanted to use Pentadactyl, and it kept using the branded search as default no matter how I tried to tweak the settings. I eventually got rid of it, but it was infuriating for me that there was no simple way to hit, "I don't want this," and have it removed totally.