It sounds like you have a third party program that has taken over your search engine, home page, and/or the default new tab page. Fortunately, this can be remedied easily: # At the top of the Firefox window, click on the Firefox button (Tools menu in Windows XP), and then click Add-ons. The Add-ons Manager tab will open. # In the Add-ons Manager tab, select the Extensions panel. # Select the toolbar you wish to remove. # Click the remove button. # Click "Restart now" if it pops up. Your tabs will be saved and restored after the restart. After Firefox restarts, install the [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/searchreset/ Search Reset Tool]. This will remove the rest of the traces of this program from your Firefox. For further information, please read [[Remove a toolbar that has taken over your Firefox search or home page]]. Does this help your question? Let us know!

See also: *http://botcrawl.com/how-to-remove-searchya-search-engine-from-your-computer-and-internet-browser-searchya-toolbar-speed-dial/ If you do not keep changes after a restart then see: *http://kb.mozillazine.org/Preferences_not_saved