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How do I stop the Foxyeah campaign from taking over my default home page

  • 6 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 5 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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I have my browser setup so that when firefox starts it is set to "Show my windows and tabs from last time".

This has worked flawlessly until you started this #FoxYeah campaign. Since this campaign has started EVERY time I start firefox, regardless of how many tabs I have open or what page they are open to, this campaign hijack takes over the first tab I have opened and replaces whatever page I leave it on with this FoxYeah campaign page. If I hit the back button it returns to the page it should be coming up with. I can't find anywhere to make this behavior stop.

Whoever thought it was a good idea to Hijack people's browsers to get them to "invite" more people to use it has made a HUGE error in judgement. I'm switching to Chrome until this hijack is over and to be honest I have lost a HUGE amount of trust and respect for the mozilla team that they would even consider this sort of tactic to spread the news about there product let alone actually implement it. I would NEVER consider recommending firefox to ANYONE based on this hijack and this very likely turned me away from using firefox now if not for good, at least for the foreseeable future until this hijack is over. The only thing this has done has made me give chrome a try again and I have to say they have definitely made the product perform much better than it used to so I'm going to give it another serious look while the mozilla team pulls their head out of their posteriors and hopefully realizes that hijacking someones browser is NO WAY to "spread the word".

I have my browser setup so that when firefox starts it is set to "Show my windows and tabs from last time". This has worked flawlessly until you started this #FoxYeah campaign. Since this campaign has started EVERY time I start firefox, regardless of how many tabs I have open or what page they are open to, this campaign hijack takes over the first tab I have opened and replaces whatever page I leave it on with this FoxYeah campaign page. If I hit the back button it returns to the page it should be coming up with. I can't find anywhere to make this behavior stop. Whoever thought it was a good idea to Hijack people's browsers to get them to "invite" more people to use it has made a HUGE error in judgement. I'm switching to Chrome until this hijack is over and to be honest I have lost a HUGE amount of trust and respect for the mozilla team that they would even consider this sort of tactic to spread the news about there product let alone actually implement it. I would NEVER consider recommending firefox to ANYONE based on this hijack and this very likely turned me away from using firefox now if not for good, at least for the foreseeable future until this hijack is over. The only thing this has done has made me give chrome a try again and I have to say they have definitely made the product perform much better than it used to so I'm going to give it another serious look while the mozilla team pulls their head out of their posteriors and hopefully realizes that hijacking someones browser is NO WAY to "spread the word".

All Replies (6)

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That definitely doesn't sound normal, and in the past 3 days since Firefox 38.0.5 launched, I haven't seen any other reports of it.

Currently the built-in Firefox home page changes from the standard logo above the search box to the FoxYeah image. Is that the page you're seeing? To compare, you can type or paste about:home in the address bar and press Enter to load it.

On the other hand, if the page you're seeing has an external URL on mozilla.org or elsewhere, could you post the address of it?

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That is correct it is the about:home. Also the correct page is in the "back" history so if I hit the back button it does go back to whatever page.

The tab that gets taken over with the about:home is whatever tab had focus when you closed firefox. so if I have the 4th tab selected when I closed firefox when I reopen firefox the fourth tab is the one that gets whatever its page was (this doesn't seem to matter it takes over whatever page you where on) and is replaced with about:home. If I hit the back button first thing then it goes to page that it should have been left on.

My build is v38.0.1 so I will try to update to the v38.0.5 I typically update whenever firefox says there is a new update but one hasn't been automatically pushed out yet so I'll try to force it.

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Mozilla shows rotating snippets on the about:home page to run different campaigns and these changes regularly.

If you prefer not to see snippets on the about:home page or if there are problems with a snippet then you can set this pref to an empty string value on the about:config page by deleting the current value via the right-click context menu (Modify) or a double-click.

Delete the storage\persistent\moz-safe-about+home folder in the Firefox profile folder with Firefox closed ("3-bar" Firefox menu button > Exit/Quit) to remove snippets stored in IndexedDB and make Firefox use a default snippet set.

You can reset the browser.aboutHomeSnippets.updateUrl pref via the right-click context menu to the default value to re-enable the snippets and make Firefox recreate the moz-safe-about+home folder.

Close and restart Firefox after changing the value of the browser.aboutHomeSnippets.updateUrl pref.

You can use this button to go to the currently used Firefox profile folder:

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Here's an easier way of hiding all the "snippets" [below the Search Container] and the hiding the "brandLogo" [the area where Foxyeah is currently being displayed] on the default home page. All you need is the Stylish extension which is available via this UserStyle page and then that UserStyle. https://userstyles.org/styles/104673/about-home-hide-snippets-and-hide-brand-logo

It's a lot less complicated than what was posted in the thread above this one.

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flushing or deleting the snipits that are on the about:home page is not a solution to this problem. The content on the about:home page isn't what the problem is. The problem is that the about:home page is being launched over the top of whatever tab I have active when I close firefox. The next time I open firefox the tab that was selected is replaced with about:home. This is something that is being recorded as part of the "history" because the back button will take me back to the correct page if I press it once I open firefox.

The issue here is WHY is the about:home page being launched period.

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Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem.

  • Switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance
  • Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe Mode start window