Hopefully I can help you out here.

• You can download Firefox from www.getfirefox.com. Download it, install it, and Make Firefox your default browser
• I'd STRONGLY suggest uninstalling Avast, McAfee, etc. Just use Microsoft Security Essentials. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5201
• After installing that, then download www.malwarebytes.com. Run a scan with it once a month.
• Finally, feel free to set your search engine to whatever you want. Add or remove a search engine in Firefox

Tyler Downer said

I'd STRONGLY suggest uninstalling Avast, McAfee, etc. Just use Microsoft Security Essentials.

• https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5201

Oh? I've been using Avast for 8 years now. Something alarming or nasty with Avast?

~Pj

Avast does many shady things, not the least of which is inserting a certificate that monitors all of your internet traffic and essentially steals your browsing history.

Did the rest of my comments help?

Hi, Tyler. Thank you for your tips. I appreciate all of it. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of Google who has taken over my firefox page. I don't think I have to download Firefox, because it's still on the page, but teeny, and meantime Google is bigger than life in both of the search boxes, plus I have things for 'sign in with Google.' Forget that. I'm not signing in with Google, and I don't even want Google acting like my browser replacement. I want to see the big Firefox logo, and then a choice of search engines underneath for me to choose from, with Google just one of the crowd. Otherwise, Google will ruin me. I don't know why the shop would do that to me. And Avast is a big pest. I have McAffee included with my contract with Spectrum -- and it's free, and I get support with it, but my computer tech at the shop told me that my computer would not allow Microsoft updates into my computer unless he got rid of McAffee.

But what I'm really calling for help with is to get rid of Google as the big cheese on my browser page. I want Firefox presence front and center, and I want Google to be just one of several search engines that I can choose from if I want to.

So you told me to download firefox, but I think it's already on my computer, but somehow Google is hogging the presence on the page. Too much. Why would Firefox allow that? And also I'm getting ads, constant. I didn't have them before.

Also, since you are so good about software, could you suggest to me an email program I can use that's similar to Outlook Express? Microsoft's Outlook 2010 system is ridiculous, and I think it was designed deliberately to keep us all from having an email list, or to be able to make group emails.

Tyler, can you tell me, is Google now a search engine, not a browser, since its name appears in big letters in both boxes, including the one that Firefox used to be in? And Firefox is a teeny little nothing on the page. Do you know why this happened? I mean like a quarter inch logo is all the presence there is on the page.

Whatever tech you used was terrible, because microsoft will update your computer just fine if you have McAfee. McAfee is just a horrible product, as is Avast, so I suggest removing both.

You may be seeing Google as your home page? I'd suggest reading the options at How to set the home page to set the home page to something else (I suggest the default home page).

You can also install an adblocker, I suggest uBlock Origin, https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/

Can you perhaps post a screenshot of what you are seeing? I'm confused as to what you mean by "Firefox is small". then i can better assist you

Tyler, you are wonderful. The reason I hate using Books for Dummies is because tech language can mean a million things, and it's hard to describe how to move one thing that is located such and such to another place located such and such, assuming I even want to move such and such because you don't even know if such and such is such and such. You get what I mean? The words are meaningless pretty much that are used to tell us what to do. We should have a glossary of basic terms. Maybe you'd invent that someday? You guys have a lot of patience, and also you know what you're saying, but to those of us who are brand new to some things -- it's still mind boggling.

For example: I do know what a screenshot is becuase I see people using them on YouTube. I figured out how to make one as you asked me of the page that I am bugged about -- which is that my Firefox browser page came back from the computer shop transferred to a big fat GOOGLE PAGE. Firefox logo is barely present on the screen, which I'd love to show you. So I did make the screen shot and I sent it to myself.

Now: How do I get it to you, to post it here? Can you tell me?

NOTE: Too bad Microsoft yanked the rug out from under us, instead of adding things on logically from what they had to XP. But that was the idea anyway -- to keep us confused so we can't talk to each other or share. That's why even the computer shops can't help, don't know what they're doing. But you would think they'd leave things alone and at least give us back our computers the way we had them in the first place unless we specifically asked for a change.

You can add a screenshot to this thread by clicking the "browse..." button underneath the box you type your reply in, then attaching it and uploading it.

So you started a new thread here :

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1229409