dr.arinbjorn@ Thank you for the issue.

Tested the issue on Ubuntu 14.04, Windows 7 and Mac OS 10.12.6 with latest stable 60.0.3112.113 and Canary 62.0.3198.0 with the below steps.

1. Launched Chrome -> opened a website eg.stack overflow and searched for a post
2. Opened a new tab and and searched for a post from omnibox and could observe the link from Stack overflow is shown as default one.

Please find the attached screen cast and confirm if anything is missed here.
Also please provide screen cast for the better understanding of the issue.

Thanks..

This shouldn't happen. A website with search functionality can register itself as a search engine, however, not as the default one.

Can you check chrome://settings/searchEngines to see what keyword did the website register itself with? Is it possible that you just happened to start your search query with that exact keyword?

E.g. "example.com" registered itself with the keyword "example", and you searched "example product".

let me just revise what I said for my instructions on how to re-produce this error:
1. go to a website with a searchable index (other than a search engine (such as an online store))
2. Do a search for anything that particular non-search-engine website has to offer
3. Go into a new tab and search for literally anything you would search for on a search engine. (such as a definition of an acronym that lazy, uneducated dullards would use instead of actually typing words)
4. Attempt to use the search function of the omnibox WITHOUT CLICKING ANY OF THE SUGGESTIONS. 

What is the expected behavior?
The search function of a non-search-engine webbsite will be set as the default search in the omnibox. And Chrome will deliver your "define: HMU" search query to that non-search-engine website's search function and that other website's search function will be listed as one of the search engines that you can set the omnibox to query from the settings

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I can't reproduce this.  Rather than being general about "use a search engine" (though in specific steps -- thanks for those), can you give a precise website/set of input strings for each step for a case where you can repro this on a clean profile?

It's possible that there's some kind of extension involved here too, which is why I mention that clean profile bit.

Yes. Try searching for something on an online store. Being more specific, Amazon. Then attempt to search for the definition of a word or an acronym using the "Define _____"
I've had this error happen with an online stores and several websites that offer free videos, one of which was youtube. I actually had to get the duckduckgo chrome extension to keep that function from changing my search engine to something else. As for any PUP/adware changing my search engine settings, that's not possible, my antivirus is a white-listing application. 

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If "define x" triggers a search, that suggests that "define" is a keyword in your search engine list.  Can you look in there for that?  (Right click omnibox, "Edit search engines".)

If typing phrases that don't begin with "define" doesn't trigger bad searching (try a garbage word like "ousnvp9r"), your default search engine is not getting changed.  Instead, I'm wondering if you're experiencing some kind of "search engine duplication" like ktam@ seems to have been seeing recently.

I just looked at the list of "search engines" in my installation of chrome. Reddit was listed there and so was youtube. Very recently I did searches on those websites for things I wanted to see. Thankfully the duckduckgo extention kept my search engine settings the same.

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Saying that things you did searches with recently are in the list isn't helpful.  The important bit is whether there is an entry in the list whose keyword is the first word of the phrase you're typing that does what you don't want.

What we're looking for is basically an exhaustive list of the details of all your search engines, including name, keyword, and URL, as well as all your extensions, whether the problem reproduces on a clean profile, whether you're signed in to sync, and what AV you have.

@Reporter: Could you please respond to comment#14.

Thanks!

One website that got added as a search engine was a store called "Goinggear" 
Goinggear.com I searched for things on that website and hours later when I was chatting with someone in an MMORPG and they used an acronym I didn't recognize. So I searched into the omnibox "Define (insert the acronym that escapes me at the moment here) when instead of duckduckgo (My preferred search engine) The search query for a definition I searched for was sent to goinggear instead of duckduckgo. To keep that from happening again. I installed the duckduckgo chrome extention. I have ZERO other extensions that affect my search engine settings. For good measure. I scanned with emsisoft EK after updating and I also scanned with zemana AM. There's no Adware/PUPs installed on my machine and there's no extensions (other than the duckduckgo one) in my installation of the chromium-based web browser I use. (comodo dragon) This same problem also happens with plain old google chrome too

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Thanks for the update.  Can you look at your about:settings page for your search engines and see if there is a search engine with the keyword "define"?

Also, does this reproduce on a clean profile?  (Settings -> Manager other people -> Add Person)

thanks,
mark

I phrased that last part wrong. I have many extensions installed in my installations of chrome and comodo dragon, but as stated before that line, there's only one extension that affects my search engine settings and that's the duckduckgo extension, which I purposefully put there to keep this error from happening. As I also stated farther up in the thread, my antivirus is a whitelisting application (comodo) and I have it set to block anything it can't identify on the spot. It's incredibly, unlikely that a PUP could've been installed without me knowing about it. I even have voodooshield as my supplementary security product.  

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Thanks for the clarification.

However, extensions can do all sorts of things, including things they may not advertise.

Can you please answer the two questions in comment #18?

thanks,
mark

opened comodo dragon inside of a sandbox in sandboxie that I use for when a friend wants to browse the internet on my computer. (one that I clear out after every use) I cleared the user profile from inside the sandbox. I can't get the error to happen now. I will say however that new builds of comodo dragon and chrome have come out since I first made my original post.

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> I can't get the error to happen now.

Did you mean, you cannot get the error to happen now in Chromium/ Google Chrome either?

If so, let me know if/when the error comes back.

If not (if you only meant you cannot reproduce the error in comodo dragon), can you try a similar experiment in Google Chrome?  I still have a suspicion that this is a problem with your particular profile and whatever settings and things you have installed on that profile.

Wait...no! it happened again! This is from the instance of comodo dragon that I'm on right now. I removed the duckduckgo extention and this is what that menu came up with. Why would reddit be set as the default search engine? A long time ago, I removed all of the others except for duckduckgo. I never selected reddit as my search engine, but I've done searches for things on reddit, also I'm currently tracking a package, so why would the postal service be there?

Deleted: Search Engine error.png 40.5 KB

	Search Engine error.png 40.5 KB View Download

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My only question now is, why would you make this possible in the first place? Firefox, for all of its flaws, doesn't do that. If you want to add a new search engine into firefox you have to actually make an effort to do that by purposefully going into another menu to add an entry. This is all because you made too many processes automatic. The only process that should be automatic is the update component. 

Thanks for the screenshot.  It clearly shows that something is changing your default search engine settings.

Can you please open about:histograms and search for "Search.DefaultSearchChangeOrigin" and post that section here.  That might explain what changed your setting.

Also, can you please try browsing in a new profile?

> why would you make this possible in the first place?
Again, I'm suspicious of the whatever extensions you have installed on your machine.  Chrome tries really hard to make sure settings aren't changed without user permissions.  Usually when the default search engine setting has changed, it was due to unwanted software.  You insist your antivirus is good and would catch things.  So I'm left to think that it might be an extension...

dr.arinbjorn@ Could you please respond to comment #28  & update the thread accordingly

Thanks..!!

I figured it out. I USED to remove all other search engines from that menu every time I would install a chromium-based browser. It seems having that menu blanked out of all entries except one will cause the browser to look for search engines to use...I think. A few minutes after my last post prior to this one I uninstalled chrome and even got rid of the user profile and then I re-installed WITHOUT removing any of the search engines that are there by default. The problem hasn't happened since this most recent installation.

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Thanks for the update on how this arose.

Yes, Chromium / Chrome always needs a default search engine, so if you try to delete one that is the default, the default will switch to another.  And I think it likely won't allow you to delete the last engine on the list.

I think this behavior is all working as intended.

Well what I did is I would manually add in the search function of duckduckgo into that menu and then I would delete all other entries