Remove a toolbar that has taken over your Firefox search or home page
Revision Information
- Revision id: 77783
- Created:
- Creator: Joni
- Comment: added instructions for restoring a manipulated shortcut: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1080047
- Reviewed: Yes
- Reviewed:
- Reviewed by: heyjoni
- Is approved? Yes
- Is current revision? No
- Ready for localization: No
Revision Source
Revision Content
This article will help you remove third-party toolbars like Ask, searchqu, MyStart, incredibar, seeearch, somoto, sweetim, uTorrent, and others from Firefox and restore your default home page, New tab page and search settings. For help removing the Babylon toolbar, see How to remove the Babylon toolbar, home page and search engine.
- If you just want to remove a search engine from the Firefox Search Bar, see the Search bar - add, change and manage search engines on Firefox article.
- If you need help with toolbar customization or if you simply want to hide a toolbar, see Customize Firefox controls, buttons and toolbars.
Table of Contents
How did this happen?
Toolbars from third-party software providers can change your search, New Tab and home page settings or cause other problems with Firefox. These toolbars can get added to Firefox when you visit a website and click on an "Install" link, when you download and run a toolbar installer, or when you install software that includes a Firefox toolbar.
In addition to setting your home page without your permission, some third-party software providers might also change a browser's shortcut so that their page always opens when you open your browser, even if you've changed the home page back. Be careful when installing or updating other applications and make sure you deselect any options for toolbars or other bundled software that you don't want.
Also, some software providers offer their own version of Firefox that includes a toolbar and other customizations (for instance, Mozilla Firefox® optimized for Yahoo!) so always make sure you download Firefox from the Firefox download page.
How do I fix it?
Use the Add-ons Manager to remove the toolbar
In most cases, third-party toolbars can be uninstalled from Firefox Add-ons Manager Extensions list, as follows:
- Click the menu button , click and select .
- Select the toolbar you wish to remove.
- Click the button.
- Click Restart now if it pops up. Your tabs will be saved and restored after the restart.
If you can't remove the toolbar from the Add-ons Manager, use the "Disable" option as a workaround, or see the Cannot remove an add-on (extension or theme) article for other solutions.
Restore the default home page or search settings
You may need to reset your Firefox search preferences and restore the default New Tab page, home page and search engine after removing the toolbar. A simple way to do that is with the SearchReset add-on.
Check Firefox's desktop shortcut
If an unwanted page keeps loading even after you've restored your home page, a third-party provider might have changed the Firefox shortcut. Here's how to change it back:
- Right-click on the Firefox icon on your desktop or task bar, then click on .
- In the Target: field, you'll see the web address that the software provider keeps telling Firefox to load when you open the browser (for example, "http://bitable.com"). Delete that web address and click to save your changes.
Other solutions
- If your current Firefox installation was customized by another software provider, you'll need to uninstall Firefox from your computer and then download Firefox from the Firefox download page and reinstall it.
- You may have malicious software installed on your computer. See Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware.