In addition to https/ssl scanning by antivirus programs, one of the other usual causes is NordVPN.

Ed, the issue is local as in making policy changes to FF, so VPN isn't relevant, and regardless no VPN active. As in the question, the steps taken have long been documented as how-to, yet no longer working.

Cheers

Which OS? You didn't mention which antivirus you are using?

Ed, as to which OS, did you notice the part about changing Registry settings? AV has zero to do with this - manual edits to registry and the like by a logged in local and Domain admin are recognized as user actions and allowed. Otherwise they'd break the whole Windows OS.

You could ask about it in Discussions and/or file a bug at https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates.

Hey Mike, I'm moving this question over here even though the user isn't using ESR. He does have a Policies question which I'm hoping you can help with.

They're trying to add another search engine option in about:preferences#search. I'm not sure about using registry entries as I thought everyone should be using policies.json nowadays. But I do know that if the formatting of the JSON is not perfect in the policies.json, it will fail to work. I remember some spacing being off around some brackets & I had to use a JSON Editor to properly format it to get a policy to work.

The message will appear if any policy is set. You can use the about:policies page Active panel to see what is currently set.

Either way, that shouldn't prevent you from setting another policy, such as a SearchEngines policy (assuming it doesn't conflict with a SearchEngines policy coming from another source).

https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/#searchengines

The search engines policies were previously not allowed on rapid release, but they are as of now, so this should work.

Can you post your complete policies.json?

@Mike Kaply

This is the policy, and as it happens the only one in the policies.json file {

 "policies": {
   "Certificates": {
     "ImportEnterpriseRoots": false
   }
 }

} Should there be or not be a space before the word "false" "ImportEnterpriseRoots": false

And also in the Registry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Mozilla\Firefox\Certificates] "ImportEnterpriseRoots"=dword:00000000

Sorry, I guess I'm not understanding the original issue here.

If you are managing Firefox, that message will appear.

And if Antivirus is forcing policy in the registry, it will appear as well.

@all

Note that this is a very simple environment: 1 Windows Server, 1 Windows 10 PC. It's a research gig much if the time so lots of web searches where I favor stating with DDG, and used to have and can't re-add a customize Google search with a widely known trick to suppress AI section - just blue links.

My user profile includes Domain Admin.

These are the "why! what?" factors and frustrations.

I have a non-domain joined Macbook using same FF profile and its been fine...today FF rese to have Google be default search, which I changed right back to DDG. Grr.

@Mike

I'm not managing anything. FF installed to this PC ages ago and I'm a user on the PC that also has Admin and Domain Admin permissions. Do don't get "If you are managing Firefox, that message will appear."

And suppose the FF decided I'm managing it...why can't I actually manage it to allow me to do what I need and want as regards Search Engines?

As t0 Antivirus is forcing policy - not that I set, never heard of one locking a user out from their browser. On other Windows PCs not in this closed domain, doesn't happen. Can change at will. This machine runs Avast, because it's less/none intrusive when writing and testing code, etc. The "peon" PCs are all BitDefender because it makes life terrible to change anything if set to do so.

Disabling Avast has no effect. This is Firefox going "Domain! Protect Protect Protect" and the documented way to address that do.not.work.

Thanks for the info.

So what it sounds like is that some antivirus is setting that one value, but they wouldn't be affecting any other things on your machine.

I don't know what would be resetting your search engine.

If you disable the AV and then remove the entry from the registry, you won't see the message.

My specific need at the moment is to add another search engine option in about:preferences#search

It's a research gig much if the time so lots of web searches where I favor stating with DDG, and used to have and can't re-add a customize Google search with a widely known trick to suppress AI section - just blue links.

And suppose the FF decided I'm managing it...why can't I actually manage it to allow me to do what I need and want as regards Search Engines?

To clarify, are you changing your search engine settings interactively through the Settings page, or are you seeking to do it through Policy?

• Change your default search settings in Firefox
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-or-remove-search-engine-firefox#w_add-a-custom-search-engine-in-settings (change the version selector to 140 to see this section; before 140, this feature was only available if you manually toggled browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh to true in about:config)

Your interactive changes should be recorded in search.json.mozlz4 in your currently active profile folder. If you want to extract that file and view its contents, I have a tool at either:

• https://www.jeffersonscher.com/ffu/searchjson.html
• https://jscher2000.github.io/Firefox-File-Utilities/searchjson.html

Is that file getting updated in real time after your changes? Is it getting reverted on any noticeable schedule, such as between Exit and restart of Firefox, or after system boot?

As t0 Antivirus is forcing policy - not that I set, never heard of one locking a user out from their browser. On other Windows PCs not in this closed domain, doesn't happen. Can change at will. This machine runs Avast, because it's less/none intrusive when writing and testing code, etc. The "peon" PCs are all BitDefender because it makes life terrible to change anything if set to do so. Disabling Avast has no effect. This is Firefox going "Domain! Protect Protect Protect" and the documented way to address that do.not.work.

Simply disabling Avast won't remove the registry entry. Try this:

- disable https/ssl scanning in Avast - remove the policy file in the installation folder - remove the entire FF policy keys in the registry (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Mozilla\Firefox\ and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Mozilla\Firefox\) - reboot the PC

@jscher2000

I made no changes, DDG was default for ages. Out of nowhere, it changed to Google with no way to override that.

Within last couple of days (today being 25 June 25).

Gee, can't imagine that maybe Mozilla did this as a "pretty please don't stop sending us $200 million a year" to Google? Nah.

Hi Alex, I haven't heard of that happening to other users, so my thought is that it is something specific to your search.json.mozlz4 file.

In the past, users have reported that if they empty out the Search Shortcuts box, then Firefox treats that as an error condition and restores the removed search engines at the next startup. I haven't tested that.

So what happens now if you change your default to DDG. Does Firefox retain the change between sessions?

@jscher2000

That's the main problem, FF does not ALLOW the change to DDG. Also can't delete Google. Which I would as I also can't add a "Google Clean" search shortcut which has a command at the end that cleans the results to just the top search resiult links - no summaries, no AI, etc.

This was spontaneous. No action on my part. FF updated and here we are.

What happens when you change the default search engine selector to DuckDuckGo? For example:

• DDG isn't listed [in this case, try "Restore default search engines" below the Search shortcuts box]
• Change appears to have been made but when reloading the Settings page, it is back on Google
• Change appears to have been made but is ignored -- top line of address bar drop-down indicates Firefox will use Google
• Change appears to have been effective -- top line of address bar drop-down indicates Firefox will use DDG -- but results appear on a different site
• Change is reverted after closing and reopening Firefox
• Change is reverted after shutting down and restarting Windows

Regarding adding a custom search engine, are you on Firefox 140.0.2 now? You should have the "Add" button below the Search shortcuts box to create your custom Google search engine.