You can change it on other launchers.
Personally I like neolauncher.
https://github.com/NeoApplications/Neo-Launcher The search bar can be set to immediately directly open Firefox search, or you can pick form a list of various engines.
There’s a dozen other launchers to try. Lawnchair is a more popular choice, probably better for someone switching from pixel default. There’s a few very specific features it’s missing for me.
If you search Lemmy for “Nova Launcher” you’ll find some threads listing a dozen alternatives due to nova’s downfall.
Yeah but this requires you to use an entirely different launcher which has its own caveats…
I’m not aware of major downsides to using a different luncher.
The biggest incovience is initial setup and putting your home screen apps back where they belong.
Spend a few hours to escape to some of google bloat and set your search bar to use Firefox (which has ublock support).