How to make yahoo go away?
On my LAN I have three windows 7 machines running and firefox 54.0.1 (32-bit); both are on automatic update. In the last month or two I have noticed that Yahoo search engine has taken over all three window/firefox systems. I have no love of big internet behemoths but it just turns out that Google works better for me in the things that I do so I want firefox to use google by default. The problem is that Yahoo keeps coming back no matter what I do. I have gone into firefox setup on all three machines and deleted ALL search engines except for google and made google the default search engine but the first time I open a new firefox session Yahoo is back as the default engine. Also in the setup there is something called "Search for Firefox" that also returns even though I deleted it. How do I make Yahoo go away? Hint I already know about Tools, Options, Search so you don't have to tell me about that.
Chosen solution
If you follow the "More" link on the Add-ons page for "Search for Firefox" is there any additional information there about what it is? Either:
- Ctrl+Shift+a (Mac: Command+Shift+a)
- "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons
- type or paste about:addons in the address bar and press Enter/Return
In the left column of the Add-ons page, click Extensions. Then find "Search for Firefox" on the right side and click its More link to see what it reveals about the source.
This is also where you would disable the extension; apologies for not mentioning that before.
Often a link will appear above a disabled extension to restart Firefox before the change takes effect. You can complete your work on the tab and click one of the links as the last step.
Any improvement?
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"Search For Fire fox 1.2" looks suspicious. If you disable it, does that make any different? does it re-enable itself? Have you checked for external malware that may be pushing that extension into Firefox?
It is "Search for Firefox" not "Search for Firefox 1.2" To answer your question, I disabled "Search for Firefox" and all other search methods except google, made google default and then started a new firefox window and the "Search for Firefox" was back and the search engine used was Yahoo. I'm running NOD32 version 10 with automatic updates and I did a scan of the entire computer with no malware encountered.
Chosen Solution
If you follow the "More" link on the Add-ons page for "Search for Firefox" is there any additional information there about what it is? Either:
- Ctrl+Shift+a (Mac: Command+Shift+a)
- "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons
- type or paste about:addons in the address bar and press Enter/Return
In the left column of the Add-ons page, click Extensions. Then find "Search for Firefox" on the right side and click its More link to see what it reveals about the source.
This is also where you would disable the extension; apologies for not mentioning that before.
Often a link will appear above a disabled extension to restart Firefox before the change takes effect. You can complete your work on the tab and click one of the links as the last step.
Any improvement?
That fixed the problem. Thank you. Don't know where it came from though. It started to be a problem a month or two ago but it took me a while to realize that I had lost control.