Sorry you are having problems. Your experience of Firefox may not be representative. It does sound as if something is going wrong but that could be malware or any number of things.

Generally Firefox should be getting faster not slower. It is advertised as

 Firefox was named the ”speed king” in independent benchmark
and performance tests against other browsers.
Save time and do just about anything quicker than before.

• See https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/desktop/

You do not need addons to keep Google as a search engine, just a few mouse clicks, will revert to Google as it is still one of the built in Search engines

• Manage Firefox search settings_set-a-default-search-engine

I am not sure what repair tools you use that lose bookmarks. Firefox has a user friendly Refresh feature that is not intended to lose bookmarks

• Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings

You do not seem to have asked any other questions, and I have no idea what all the things are that you tried. Possibly get ideas by looking at.

• Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware
• Quick fixes if your Firefox slows down
  • Firefox uses too much memory or CPU resources - How to fix
  • Firefox uses too much memory or CPU resources - How to fix

thanks for the reply , I agree a few clicks does give me back google but thats on each search, I have killed all search engines other than google , set google as default, yet it still returns searches in yahoo , I have to go to the search select tool each time and select google , I have been accusing my isp of speed issues. I now find by not using firefox my 75 optic connection performs, as my trial of Opera does. As for the reset tools I refer to the one that factory resets. which I have been advised to do , and yes I lost my bookmarks, links and passwords, I can make claim to jump the highest but that not to say I can. As for malware thats what I do clear rubbish from machines, so my machine running win7 sp1 is totally free of any infections, I use nod 32 winner of numerous 100% awards for years as a VC without a shadow of doubt firefox has the abs brake pedal stuck down. It would appear that I am not the only one experiencing performance issues we all cant be wrong.

If you can not even set the Search engine to one of the built in ones something is going wrong.

Maybe it is not malicious malware. Maybe it is the applications and tools you intentionally choose to use to clear rubbish from machines they may be preventing or reversing changes to Firefox settings and deleting your bookmarks.

• What do you mean you have killed all search engines ?
  What are you doing that with ?
• Does ESET Nod 32 interfere with Firefox and its settings and data ?
  If so maybe it should be set not to do so.

I am not the only one experiencing performance issues we all cant be wrong.

There are about 1/2 Billion Firefox users, so even if less than 1% have any particular problem that is millions of users. So if you look you will find problems even if over 99% have no problems.

You could get a copy of the third party Firefox portable, and put that on a memory stick.

• Does that work faster and allow you to permanently select Google as a Search engine ?
• What about if you then try that Firefox portable memory stick on another machine. One without all your security and rubbish clearing features interfering ?
• http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable

Or just look at other people using Firefox and ask how well it works. Rather than asking online who has problems with Firefox.

Thanks again for your reply I would not bother to engage with you if I did not want to keep using FF and of course you are going to defend your product, My pc has had very little done to it since I started using FF, the operating sys has been updated as has ms office, obviously windows has taken updates, FF and TB as I remember went through a series of updates in quick succession , I seem to recollect that it was around the same time of the updates that I started to notice issues. Nod 32 always use to integrate with FF so I see no reason why that would have changed they would with out shadow of doubt run tests on any serous browser contenders, and yes it is set to scan my mails (its intended purpose) It would appear that its all about turning stuff off in FF to make it work. As for killing off browsers, as you will be aware of is list of search engines normally all ticked by default, I have un-ticked all the browsers in this list except google. but of late now defaults to yahoo. Whilst typing this I have launched FF I have a yahoo search bar, below is how FF is setup

under options- general I have "when FF stars "google.com" under search I have Default set to google, Provide search suggestions un-ticked, show search suggestions in location bar results un-ticked. In the below list refereed toI have google ticked as default (last entry) and google ticked (first entry) under content drm ticked, notification un-ticked, pop-ups ticked under applications most of the entries refer to VLC player all allowed the other 5 entries are actioned to ask. under privacy tracking both ticked, history remember, location all ticked. under security General all ticked, logins un-ticked under sync FF account my mail address, sync across devices un ticked, device name "name of machine". under advanced accessibility all un-ticked, Browsing all ticked. under data choices enable FF health report Un-ticked, share additional data un-ticked, enable crash reports un-ticked network all unticked accept offline web content. updates FF Update auto install & warn me if this will disable addons will, use update history ticked, auto update ticked requests ask me every time, query ocsp ticked the only addons are addblock plus and .net framework.

I know that this is long winded but i need to understand the issues. Another thing that is more than apparent is the extraordinary time it takes to launch both TB and FF. An FF banner appears stating that FF launch was slow (or words to effect) sometime it takes so long that it leads you to think that the program has not even been launched , hence a relaunch then two FF browsers appear. the whole affair has become very messy and not straight forward. I has to be something to do with FF and TB as any other program launches ready to use within 2-4 seconds, FF/TB at least 45 secs this cant be normal. This has been tested with AV, MW fire wall off result no effect. I have mentioned my trial of opera this has no less than five accounts yet its up and running in seconds and seems to come in already with any new mails ready to read , Where as TB sits for an age after launch to download messages, should I send a test mail to self it has taken as long half a day to return, hence why a thought it was my isp that had the issue My stubbornness to try other browsers as suggested by my ISP could have saved me two years of ISP wrangles honestly there is nothing else they can do I have letters to this effect, they have always blamed FF. I thought that they were not conversant with it, Their reason for moving me on.

Thunderbird I suggest you start another questions specifically about Thunderbird. I do not use that at the moment. It does sound crazy that a test email to yourself apparently takes 1/2 a day to show up. Please use this special link Please mention it if you do post a Thunderbird question.

It's not my Firefox, I am only a fellow Firefox user.

Further Info please You did not post this Question from Firefox. We do not even know for sure what version of Firefox you are using. Please paste in your actual trouble shooting information as explained lower down in this post. Edit out the print relate data as that is likely to take up too much space for you to fit it in one reply, and that does not relate to your question. Please put other information in a separate reply

Start Page You appear to be setting google.com as your start page. To see that you will need to use the start page and not start with windows and tabs from last time.

• How to set the home page
• Startup, home page, tabs, and download settings
• Have you set Firefox to start from your homepage ?
  • What do you see when Firefox starts, if it is not google.com ?
  • A screen shot may help How do I create a screenshot of my problem?

Search Firefox has various search methods. All should use the same search engine, unless otherwise selected or changed.

• Try highlighting text on this forum post by selecting it with the cursor and right clicking it. That should give you
  EDIT that should have an option to search using your default search engine Google do you see that ?

Slow 45 seconds start That may be slower than expected but not be so bad as to make Firefox unusable.

• Do you have Firefox set to clear History when it closes down ?

Other slow tasks ? 30sec slower than another browser ! What sort of thing are you talking about here ? You are not for instance saying Firefox is 30 seconds slower at opening an ordinary web page are you !?

• Did you look at the articles I linked to in my previous post ?
• Did you give Firefox Portable a go on a memory stick ?
  What happened ?

Troubleshooting Information

To find the correct solution to your problem, we need some more non-personal information from you. Please do the following:

1. Use ONE of these methods to open the Firefox Troubleshooting Information page:
   • Click the menu button , click on help and select Troubleshooting Information.
   • Type about:support into the Firefox address bar and press the enter key.
2. At the top of the Troubleshooting Information page that comes up, you should see a button that says "Copy text to clipboard". Click it.
3. Now, go back to your forum post, right-click in the reply box and select Paste from the context menu (or else click inside the reply box and press the Ctrl+V keys) to paste all the information you copied into the forum post. (Please edit out the print info)

If you need further information about the Troubleshooting information page, please read the article Use the Troubleshooting Information page to help fix Firefox issues.

Thanks in advance for your help!

P.S. I missed off

that should have an option to search 
using your default search engine Google do you see that ? 

I am going to attempt to work through your last post.

version 38.7.2

this is the home page (but not one i want)

http://searchinterneat-a.akamaihd.net/h?eq=U0EeCFZVBB8SRggReAEJWVtJEBgRJloNTA0TGVAOIQwOUBRIEAFBIgFdVFwXFwAFIk0FA18DB0VXfWFoKB8fHGZXNV1BMlwQU1ZLF1BWBVYG

see image in the pdf set

"have you set FF to start from your home page ?" sorry I dont undersatnd this question, If you mean my desk top then yes I launch from a shortcut Icon from my desktop.

"try highlighting text in this forum" seems to stop " this should give you ? what.

clear history , FF not sent to delete history , but set to delete cookies

3 second slower than other, FF just sits therewith a sinning win 7 disk and yes it takes 30 or longer , sometimes even timing out.

I have not tried FF portable  screen dump of trouble shooting information see pdf

 Application Basics

   Name: Thunderbird
   Version: 38.7.2
   User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.7.2
   Profile Folder: Show Folder

             (Local drive)
   Application Build ID: 20160402193654
   Enabled Plugins: about:plugins
   Build Configuration: about:buildconfig
   Memory Use: about:memory

 Mail and News Accounts
   account1:
     INCOMING: account1, , (imap) mail.talktalk.net:143, plain, passwordEncrypted
     OUTGOING: smtp.talktalk.net:587, plain, passwordCleartext, true

   account2:
     INCOMING: account2, , (none) Local Folders, plain, passwordCleartext

   account3:
     INCOMING: account3, , (pop3) mail.talktalk.net:110, plain, passwordEncrypted
     OUTGOING: smtp.talktalk.net:25, plain, passwordCleartext, true

   account4:
     INCOMING: account4, , (pop3) mail.talktalk.net:110, plain, passwordEncrypted
     OUTGOING: smtp.talktalk.net:25, plain, passwordCleartext, true

 Crash Reports

 Extensions
   Lightning, 4.0.7.2, true, {e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103}

 Important Modified Preferences

   Name: Value

     browser.cache.disk.capacity: 358400
     browser.cache.disk.smart_size_cached_value: 358400
     browser.cache.disk.smart_size.first_run: false
     browser.cache.disk.smart_size.use_old_max: false
     extensions.lastAppVersion: 38.7.2
     font.internaluseonly.changed: false
     font.name.monospace.el: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-cyrillic: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-unicode: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-western: Consolas
     font.name.sans-serif.el: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-cyrillic: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-unicode: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-western: Calibri
     font.name.serif.el: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-cyrillic: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-unicode: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-western: Cambria
     font.size.fixed.el: 14
     font.size.fixed.x-cyrillic: 14
     font.size.fixed.x-unicode: 14
     font.size.fixed.x-western: 14
     font.size.variable.el: 17
     font.size.variable.x-cyrillic: 17
     font.size.variable.x-unicode: 17
     font.size.variable.x-western: 17
     mail.openMessageBehavior.version: 1
     mail.winsearch.firstRunDone: true
     mail.winsearch.global_reindex_time: 1459700491
     mailnews.database.global.datastore.id: 95e36591-a45e-4be9-a96d-0e683baf0b3
     network.cookie.lifetimePolicy: 2
     network.cookie.prefsMigrated: true
     network.predictor.cleaned-up: true
     places.database.lastMaintenance: 1460308611
     places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages: 26832
     plugin.importedState: true
     privacy.donottrackheader.enabled: true

 Graphics

     Adapter Description: ATI RADEON 9600 Series (Microsoft Corporation - WDDM)
     Vendor ID: 0x1002
     Device ID: 0x4150
     Adapter RAM: Unknown
     Adapter Drivers: atiumdag atiumdva atitmmxx
     Driver Version: 8.56.1.16
     Driver Date: 4-25-2009
     Direct2D Enabled: Blocked for your graphics driver version. Try updating your graphics driver to version 9.6 or newer.
     DirectWrite Enabled: false (6.2.9200.17568)
     ClearType Parameters: ClearType parameters not found
     WebGL Renderer: Blocked for your graphics driver version. Try updating your graphics driver to version 9.6 or newer.
     GPU Accelerated Windows: 0. Blocked for your graphics driver version. Try updating your graphics driver to version 9.6 or newer.

     AzureCanvasBackend: skia
     AzureSkiaAccelerated: 0
     AzureFallbackCanvasBackend: cairo
     AzureContentBackend: cairo

 JavaScript

 Incremental GC: 1

 Accessibility

   Activated: 0
   Prevent Accessibility: 0

 Library Versions

     Expected minimum version
     Version in use

     NSPR
     4.10.10
     4.10.10

     NSS
     3.19.2.3 Basic ECC
     3.19.2.3 Basic ECC

     NSS Util
     3.19.2.3
     3.19.2.3

     NSS SSL
     3.19.2.3 Basic ECC
     3.19.2.3 Basic ECC

     NSS S/MIME
     3.19.2.3 Basic ECC
     3.19.2.3 Basic ECC

I have screen shot a series of FF pages As requested size 2.2 meg but wont let me send. please advise further

Hi Zilla, Thanks. Looks like we have found a major cause of your problem. Here's my comments. First off you may be following this thread from emails. It may be easier following on the public forum at /questions/1117560

IF you are using Fx38.7 that is one of the ESR series. Mozilla does not ordinarily support individual users using that. Let's overlook that for now as you re trying to troubleshoot problems, and apparently may have unresolved issues on the standard release Channel. If that is Thunderbird's version it is probably up to date.

This is important. Home page using: http://searchinterneat-a.akamaihd.net... That's a pretty sure sign of a browser hijacker. So you will need to reconsider the claim that your machine "is totally free of any infections" Creating and using a new profile may give at least a temporary reprieve if you want a quick test:

• Profile Manager - Create, remove or switch Firefox profiles

until that also gets corrupted. This article gives full details of how to remove:

• (Malwaretips)How to remove Searchinterneat-a.akamaihd.net (Guide) https://malwaretips.com/blogs/remove-searchinterneat-a-akamaihd-net/
  • Please try that and report back how you get on ?
  • Does it solve the problem with Google searches ?
    It should do!

... "have you set FF to start from your home page ?"
sorry I dont undersatnd this question, ...

Basically you get options in the settings to choose between Firefox on startup displaying:

• homepages
• or displaying windows and tabs from the prior session.

Firefox's troubleshooting info copied as text, with the print related info edited out should be small enough to fit into one of these forum replies. Images may be attached to forum replies. There is some limit on the size, but generally if.png or .jpeg screenshots are used they will attach but uncompressed bit map images will be too big. .pdf files can not be attached. Perhaps you can post elsewhere and provide a public link.

"try highlighting text in this forum" seems to stop " this should give you ? what

Sorry I messed up with the reply. It will make more sense looking on the forum where I made an additional post and edited the original to show as:

Firefox has various search methods. All should use the same search engine, unless otherwise selected or changed.

• Try highlighting text on this forum post by selecting it with the cursor and right clicking it. That should give you
  EDIT that should have an option to search using your default search engine Google do you see that ?

I am interested to learn how you deduced from the log that that FF was hijacked. Seems that I may need to eat humble pie, I was confident stating my machine was clean as it had recently been formatted and re installed, (the last to be downloaded was pdf software). Back to the issue, I have scanned using your suggested software ( I use this anyway) letting the software clean. Under a tab (FF) was the hijack you suggested (ADW remover). After a re-boot a FF update cam in 45.0.2 which I updated to. I searched up goggle search page/site and dragged it to the home icon, then did a search and it returned in yahoo. Further tests prove that using the small search field in the toolbar returns in yahoo, opening a new tab and search returns in yahoo. Clicking the google icon now on the toolbar launches the correct search engine, but for a continued google search return I must always use the google search page. Basically I feel that the majority of FF can no longer be used as it is all seems geared around yahoo. I carried out a test based on your suggestion copy text from thread and it does offer me a re-search using google

thanks

You are welcome. Sounds like we are making progress. Firefox does not force you to use Yahoo, it offers Google as a built in easy to use and choose alternative.

Hijackers may like to hide but if for instance they are monetising the exploit of searches the redirect they use is often a good give-away clue and in this case the hijacker had also changed your homepage. Its probably also changed shortcuts and maybe other browsers too.

My Firefox is by default based on Google searches as I am not using a en-US build of Firefox . However I choose most of the time not to use Google, and if I do I tend not to use google.com

You possibly have not yet got rid of all the malware and its after effects.

You are choosing Google as a homepage. That is not the same as setting your default search engine as Google. You need to change that to Google. The screenshots are for Yahoo just select Google instead. See Manage Firefox search settings_set-a-default-search-engine

By the way the default home page is obtained by keying in to the address bar about:home (even if you have other custom chosen home pages) The search engine that uses for you right now will be Yahoo. When you change the search bar to use Google that too will use Google.

Lets get that sorted then see what problems remain.

Earlier I mentioned about killing of other search engine this was the list I was refereing to . my home page is now to https://www.google.co.uk/ and google is set to my default search. I followed you instruction but was already set , I must have done this some other way round.

one thing that I have noticed and this only a comment TB on a post to self test is the fastest it ever been 5 -6 years.

Once again thanks

PS I have also run a AV scan along with other antimalware progs and trend hijack this and removed one entry. AV result zero, a clean result from antimalware scans.

Are your searches now staying as you expect them ? - Google And your home page also staying as Google What about if you highlight and right click, or if you use about:home are they both staying as google.

The other thing to check is that when Firefox opens it does not have any extra or substituted homepage that is still wrong and Yahoo related.

By the way if you use the en-GB build of Firefox it has google/co/uk as its default search engine the menu even spells customise with an s not a z. You need to add an en-uk or whatever spellchecker though, some issue with licensing prevents that being built in.

• e.g. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/british-english-dictionary-2
• & en-GB Firefox https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-45.0.2-SSL&os=win&lang=en-GB <-- subject to change - correct at 13th April

Sounds like you are just about sorted out then if the searches work. Thunderbird improved. What about Firefox is that back to normal now ?

thanks one again

find myselt typing this stuff out in word and copying it over. I don’t like the way this thread site works, the times that I have typed stuff into it then had the need to check something only to return the text has not been retained, I feel that this needs addressing.

I do feel things are better, I have used the link you provided and have updated FF to the EN version, I have yet to install the dictionaries. Using the small search field next to the address field. I first check to see what the default is, I find that I have two google icons in there one that is a standard uppercase (G) made up of the google colour scheme, the other is a white lower case (g) carved out of a block of google colours, both appear in the list of search engines the latter says default (lower case g) there is also the word “default” on its own. I have de selected the lower case version, so that I only have one google icon visible on a check (small search field). However, when I carry out a search using the small search field it still returns yahoo results, it is hells bent on using yahoo.

Are you sure that this has nothing to do with the fact that google no longer sponsors FF. Google have even posted that the google toolbar is no longer available for FF, I feel that whatever you do search wise, will always return with yahoo. Yahoo would not be that happy if their FF sponsorship still allowed users to retain by default google searches. A situation must surly arise that, let’s say 50% of FF users wanted to retain google, yahoo would surely be unhappy that their sponsorship was still directing searches via google they obviously want the larger slice of the pie, let’s face it, its all about domination and the very reason they approved sponsorship there must be T&C’s attached to the deal. .

so its lookes like full circle, either live with yahoo or find an alternative browser. Intrested in any comments.

found this interesting post

http://www.cnet.com/news/google-to-firefox-users-dump-yahoo-for-us/ _{Edit. Fixed Link ~J99} http://www.cnet.com/news/google-to-firefox-users-dump-yahoo-for-us/

If it is sticking on Yahoo you probably still have malware issues. Please check again by running all the scans mentioned in

• Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware

If it is offering additional search engines, that could just be due to installing en-GB over en-US . That should be relatively trivial to reset.

Even the US versions can be easily changed back to use Google. As the link from your Jan2015 cnet blog shows with this slightly outdated example: link

I will reset one of my Mozilla Build British Firefox's & check exactly what search engines they have. en-GB Firefox definitely still has Google as the default search engine, and I am fairly certain it is google.co.uk Anyhow it is easy to set google.co.uk as a default search engine, and as long as there is no interfering malware it will stay that way.

I've just been looking for the relevant Mozilla announcements on Google search they are here

• 2011 Google renewal: Mozilla and Google Sign New Agreement for Default Search in Firefox
• 2014 USA goes to Yahoo New Search Strategy for Firefox: Promoting Choice & Innovation

  Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, eBay, Amazon, Twitter and Wikipedia will continue to be built-in as alternate search options.

The Google toolbar is something that is old and no longer supported by google. Effectively you kept bookmarks on the cloud instead of your computer. I guess the business model was that it tied you to that Google site. Our old help article on this being phased out Google Toolbar is no longer compatible with Firefox - Here are some alternatives

I really cant see what else I can do here any scans I invoke all come back clean, I have even taken the steps of removing the HDD and hooking up to another pc and then running scans also coming up clean,I dont see how anybody can be more intensive, If what you are saying is correct (about an infection) then thousands if not more FF users would be in the same boat, as it would mean that there is an infiltration out there that is able to infect a machine that is totaly invisible to any scanner and it main objective is to make sure Yahoo is default. Should this be the case then Yahoo engineers would be the first people to look at for developing such a undetectable infiltration.

or in my opinion which is basically the same as above, the program has been coded to direct mail through yahoo servers.(could FF and Yahoo engineers be the same people) Yes it may have other search engines listed but they all seem to default back to Yahoo. If FF users thought they would be forced to use a search engine with a small slice of the pie compaired with google thay would jump ship asap. Its far easier to make claim that the issue is a users fault and blame an infiltration. You have got to agree that things simply dont add up.

Rdirecting visitors When working on your website, you may want to prevent any visitor from accessing your site except you. This can be done by creating a 302 temporary or a 301 permenant redirect in your .htaccess file to a construction or any other page. By creating a redirect for any IP address except your own in your .htaccess, you can prevent visitors from accessing your site while you update it. This tutorial will explain how to create a redirect for all IP addresses.

This is what I intend to look at next (part transcript from here https://techwalla.com/content/fix-redirected-pages _{fixed link ~J99} https://techwalla.com/content/fix-redirected-pages )

Log in to your domain name root using an FTP program (FileZilla is free). Click on the options tab bar and choose Server - Force, showing hidden files. Open up the public_html directory. Look for the file .htaccess, which stores all redirect functions. Download .htaccess to your computer, preferably on the Desktop where it can be easily found. Open up .htaccess using Notepad. Scroll through the .htaccess file in Notepad and look for URL redirection codes. A 301 is a permanent URL redirect code and a 302 is a temporary redirect code. Remove the entire line of code starting at Redirect 301 or 302 and ending at the page file extension. For example, a permanent web root redirect code will look like this: Redirect 301 / http://www.justanexample.com

To me this is a little deeper than a malware infiltration as it would need to penitrate into the pupblic html directory on your ISP sever where the sever security would hopfully pick up any attempt to modify code, however this is somthing that would be easily achived from the webmasters end without effecting the public directory. As an example the google page could be cloned and coded to direct searches through, a yahoo search from the onset. I am becoming more suspicious of FF as time goes on. I would be interested in any comments especially now my hdd has had an external scan.

thanks

forgot to mention using the small search field next to the address field, you have default search, next in a list search with (google listed) and then in my case add mozilla support, If I enter a search subject into the small field then click on the mag glass and select google it searches google and returns google , but this would need to be done each and every time if you select the default search from the mag list it searches in yahoo.

Thanks for doing a through check of your HDD. Conspiracies It is not going to be the fault of the Firefox code.

• All the code is open for anyone to see, examine and test.
• Mozilla document how the search settings should work. If that goes wrong for many people we would quickly realise. (This forum, bug reports, the feedback info, the search providers themselves! reports on the internet.)

Different scanning tools look for different things that is why I suggested you use all the ones listed. Don't forget choosing or setting a search engine is a matter of personal choice, and not necessarily something any scanning tool would see as suspicious.

In rare cases search results may come back wrong or traffic may be redirected due to external problems, but that is not what you are seeing. The most likely cause is still either malware or its after affects.

Your problem is apparently with Firefox. Not due to some conspiracy but because something is affecting or changing it files or settings. That needs no conspiracy theory there is no shortage of money making malware around that does that. (By the way, Mozilla does not rule out conspiracies and even tries to make contingency plans This blog was from the then Chief Technical Officer & later CEO ) .htccess Is unrelated to your issue just forget about that idea.

Lets get back on track. The aim of this is to get your Firefox behaving like mine and most of the other 1/2 billion installs of Firefox. Namely

1. You have the expected built in search engines available
2. You choose a default search engine
3. Firefox uses that default search engine, for all of it's various search features, unless you specify otherwise.
4. Firefox does not revert to some other search engine at every restart it remembers and uses your chosen search engine.

There are two related things we need to make sure are back to normal on your Firefox.

1. The Firefox core program files. These actually initially create, or recreate the Search engines and their settings.
2. The search engines and settings used, these are in the Firefox profile

• Once they are back to normal we can make a copy of some of the profile files, and check whether anything modifies them.

So what I need you to do please, in this order, is:

• I will give full details in a follow up post

1. Take a screenshot of your search engines options.
2. What we refer to as a clean install. That is deleting the current Firefox program files before reinstalling Firefox. (Reinstall the en-GB version)
3. A Firefox Refresh (That's a short easy option that should sort out the profile)
4. Test Firefox.
   1. Provide a screenshot of the initial Search engine options.
   2. Test what happens on search from the Homepage.
      And take and provide a screenshot of the default homepage, before you change anything.
      What search engine did that use ?
5. Restart Firefox and run the test again please and take another screenshot.
6. We may need to more aggressively replace the profile if the Refresh did not work. Then we may need to get some of your settings back.

1. Take a screenshot of your search engines options. Maybe use the Windows snipping tool. The file needs to be a small file, usually a compressed image rather than a bitmap. The shots from the snipping tool will work.

• See How do I create a screenshot of my problem?
• http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/snipping-tool-faq

I am after a screenshot similar to ones in posts higher up that show the options you have to select from (the shots above are actually outdated). You can get to those by keying in or pasting in to the addressbar

about:preferences#search

I expect you will have in en-GB

• Google (It actually uses google.co.uk)
• Yahoo.co.uk
• Bing
• Amazon.co.uk
• Chambers (uk)
• eBay.co.uk
• DuckDuckGo
• Twitter
• Wikipedia (en)

2. A clean Install This means you remove your Firefox program files and then reinstall Firefox. This process does not remove your Firefox profile data (such as bookmarks and passwords), since that information is stored in a different location.

To do a clean reinstall of Firefox, please follow these steps: Note: You might want to print these steps or view them in another browser.

1. Download the latest Desktop version of Firefox from mozilla.org (or choose the download for your operating system and language from this page) and save the setup file to your computer.
2. After the download finishes, close all Firefox windows (or open the Firefox menu and click the close button ).
3. Delete the Firefox installation folder, which is located in one of these locations, by default:
   • Windows:
     • C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox
     • C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox
   • Mac: Delete Firefox from the Applications folder.
   • Linux: If you installed Firefox with the distro-based package manager, you should use the same way to uninstall it - see Install Firefox on Linux. If you downloaded and installed the binary package from the Firefox download page, simply remove the folder firefox in your home directory.
4. Now, go ahead and reinstall Firefox:
   1. Double-click the downloaded installation file and go through the steps of the installation wizard.
   2. Once the wizard is finished, choose to directly open Firefox after clicking the Finish button.

More information about reinstalling Firefox can be found here.

WARNING: Do not use a third party uninstaller as part of this process. Doing so could permanently delete your Firefox profile data, including but not limited to, extensions, cache, cookies, bookmarks, personal settings and saved passwords. These cannot be easily recovered unless they have been backed up to an external device! See Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles.

3. A Firefox Refresh Follow the instructions in this article. It even has a button you can use. Note you will lose any Firefox extensions. You may wish to bookmark their home pages or support sites first.

• Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings

4. Test Firefox

1. Provide a screenshot of the initial Search engine options.
   That's as explained in the First point 1.
2. Test what happens on search from the Homepage.
   • Note keying in about:home and pressing the Enter key will get that page.
   • And take and provide a screenshot of the default homepage, before you change anything.
     Please take screenshot that shows the full screen.
   • What search engine did that use ?
     It should use google, in fact google.co.uk as you installed the en-GB build

5. Restart Firefox and run the test again please and take another screenshot. As above