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How do I get rid of Startnow?

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Start now took over my Firefox a few weeks back. I was able to remove the toolbar as well as reset my home page but now every time I open a new tab it directs me to the Startnow search engine. How do I remove this? Thank you!!

Start now took over my Firefox a few weeks back. I was able to remove the toolbar as well as reset my home page but now every time I open a new tab it directs me to the Startnow search engine. How do I remove this? Thank you!!

Chosen solution

There's a hidden setting for new tabs. Have you already tried this?

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste newtab and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the browser.newtab.url preference and enter your preferred page:

  • Page thumbnails (default) => about:newtab
  • Blank tab => about:blank
  • Built-in Firefox home page => about:home
  • Any other page => full URL to the page

Press Ctrl+t to open a new tab and verify that it worked. Fixed?

Your "More System Details" shows a user.js file in your personal Firefox settings folder (your Firefox profile folder). Firefox will use any settings in this file to override your preferences at the next startup, so you may want to delete it. This article describes how to track down and remove the file: How to fix preferences that won't save.

Any luck?

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All Replies (3)

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Chosen Solution

There's a hidden setting for new tabs. Have you already tried this?

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste newtab and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the browser.newtab.url preference and enter your preferred page:

  • Page thumbnails (default) => about:newtab
  • Blank tab => about:blank
  • Built-in Firefox home page => about:home
  • Any other page => full URL to the page

Press Ctrl+t to open a new tab and verify that it worked. Fixed?

Your "More System Details" shows a user.js file in your personal Firefox settings folder (your Firefox profile folder). Firefox will use any settings in this file to override your preferences at the next startup, so you may want to delete it. This article describes how to track down and remove the file: How to fix preferences that won't save.

Any luck?

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Thank you so much jscher2000 I Reset my Firefox in the Troubleshooting section and all visible signs of Startnow are gone. Hope its not hiding in there anywhere

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Wow, okay, the Reset feature creates a folder on your desktop named Old Firefox Data. I suggest keeping that around for at least a couple weeks in case you notice anything important missing in your newly cleaned up Firefox. It's not always easy to figure out how to recover data from that folder, so feel free to ask if needed.