Hi,

Sometimes it may happen that installing yahoo messenger or toolbar or another yahoo app also installs a supporting application that is independent of the main application. It silently runs in the background and detects and reverts changes made to the settings of the main yahoo application or yahoo specific settings on the browsers installed in the PC. I had this issue sometime back. I don't remember it well but I think you may find the helper app if it is installed, in the Start menu and in the Programs and Features of Control Panel.

Thanks for the help but I don't see the helper app in either place. I am getting some type of popup from support.com toolbar about ask.com. Maybe that is it? I removed the support.com program but this popup is still showing up. BTW, I am running Windows 7.

Not sure of that. I think ask.com is a separate entity.

You may be able to make sure that it is not a browser preference corruption by creating a new dummy profile. Once created, also disable all the plugins in the new profile.

Start Firefox in Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode to check if one of the extensions or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox (Tools) > Add-ons > Appearance/Themes).

• Don't make any changes on the Safe mode start window.
• https://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+Mode

See also:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Preferences_not_saved
• https://support.mozilla.com/kb/Preferences+are+not+saved

Click in Search Engine then choose manage Search Engines, on manage Search Engine list window choose yahoo then remove. its work for me.

I had the same kind of problem but more critical, whenever I use to search for something on goggle it use to take me to qseach , I tried my best to fix it but could not ,then my friend who works in www.windowsphonesupport.com helped me out ,it took him 2 hour and he used all the tools (software ) he can I don't remember many of them but I still remember malwarebytes and esat

When I installed a new program yesterday, it also without my knowledge installed a customised Yahoo toolbar at the same time setting default search to Yahoo.

Even though I removed the toolbar from Firefox, nothing I did would stop Yahoo from being the default search. Changing it in "manage search engines" or about:config didn't help as it was immediately reset. I wasted hours searching the web looking for a solution.

Eventually I started task manager and noticed an application called searchsettings.exe this is malware supplied by completely completely unethical company called Spigot Inc this runs in the background forcing search back to Yahoo contrary to the computer owner's settings.

It may be uninstalled via the Windows Control Panel. One just needs to find the toolbar to uninstall. In my case I found and removed an application called "pdfForge Toolbar" which also removed searchsettings.exe.

I am absolutely galled at the audacity of Spigot Inc installing a program surreptitiously that prevented me from changing the settings on my own computer is completely dishonest. I refuse to use any software that installs a Spigot Inc Toolbar, it is about time that Spigot was shut down!