Sorry to get techie, but there are two bars on firefox that do not serve beer, there is the search bar and the location bar. Which bar is affected ? - this could be important.

Sometimes this sort of problem is caused by some plugin software, the name of which may bear no resemblance to Yahoo.

Have a look at

• What to do when searches take you to the wrong search website

Also

• Are searches on the location bar and search bar both affected ?
• Exactly which searches are a problem ?

Sorry to get techie but there can be many bars within Firefox depending on what all is installed. There are many TOOLBARS but there is ONLY ONE SEARCH BAR.

Maybe you know of more then one way to use or do searches via Yahoo but the the Search Providers are ONLY in ONE place & there are more then one. Google was the Default before 5.0's one of many bugs.

It doesn't matter whether you delete a Search Provider, Change the Order of them or Anything ELSE!!!

That Home Page is being changed too.

Supposedly this was going to be more stable then 4.0 but it crashes even more then 4 was. The only time I saw Firefox stay stable was by keeping my PC under 3.0 GHz.

Taz_man, maybe it would help if you start your own thread about your own problem, and provide the sort of information that I asked above, it should help anyone who is trying to give you an answer.

well, I wonder if Mozilla has sold their soul to yahoo? with the upgrade to 5.0, when I type a word into the LOCATION BAR (not the search bar), by default the search turns to yahoo. I've attempted to find a way to change the default and can't find it. With older versions, I could type a word into any of the URL bars and the default search went to google, but of course google has chrome so is Mozilla playing politics? that there appreas to be no way yo change default has me concerned. I'm about ready to run to Chrome and (aghast) turn to Window's Explorer. The beauty of Firefox was it's customization - I'm seeing less and less of that . . .

Cardcreek,
I suspect you have fallen prey to either malware, or something you inadvertently installed. See the link in my post above, & if you continue to have problems I suggest you start your own thread.

No John99, it's a Firefox thing. I had firefox installed, then got the suggestion to upgrade. IMMEDIATELY when 6.0 started, I got the google search page, entered a search criteria, clicked the magnifying glass button to search and there I was with Yahoo search results. I copied my profile folder to another drive, deleted all of my Mozilla firefox folders, and did a reinstall to 4.0 and the problem was fixed. Mozilla has built in the yahoo hijack into 5 and 6. I thought it was just 6, but it looks like 5 too. If you can't come up with a solution and don't know what you are talking about, you should keep your comments to yourself, especially if you are going to reply with a condescending, swarmy tone like you did.

Redraider89,
I repeat that Yahoo is not a default Firefox feature as the main search engine from the location bar (assuming you have a standard Firefox install from Mozilla).

Feel free to continue posting comments where you like, but you will be much more likely to get a constructive answer if you start your own thread and give full details of your own problem.

All of my Firefox installs have the option to use Yahoo search, but are currently using Google.

I do not believe this is built into firefox,??? i have had firefox for a long time and now have 5.0 and this never happened before.However i installed gimp the other day and gotten hit with some various other things that installed as well that i did not want. it was my fault fro not paying attention.. But ever since i installed gimp with the other things that installed with it from the site i got it from.. this is when all the problems started.. I am not convinced this is even a legit yahoo browser/search thing.. i think it's fake and is adware/malware??? i have uninstalled all my yahoo related programs,ran scans removed all the other things that came with my gimp the other day, but this yahoo garbage is still there.. before this problem when i opened a tab, it was just a blank page.. now it is going to this yahoo thing and i do not think it's a real yahoo..plus when i do do a search with it, almost every page my virus protection is going off, so i am trying to track the file down this way to.

because when i open a tab this is the link that comes up. http://search.yahoo.com/?fr=freeze&type

if it was real yahoo default browse it should only come up as this. http://search.yahoo.com/

So my guess is there is a corrupt host/or other sort of file somewhere that has to be removed in order to get rid of this.. where.. who knows may be somewhere in system 32 files,app data.. And that is only if i am correct? it seems no one really knows much about this yet.. i have searched many places and all answers so far are leading to no solution's.. So i can only hope to get rid of this or will have to stop using firefox and uninstall it all together.. and that would suck.. but i do not want this crap in my computer.. but it's mess how ever we all got this???

kirkit,

It is probably worth starting your own thread about the problem you have, you can always add links to or from this thread.

It should be possible to get Firrefox working without additional unwanted search features or toolbars; and it should be possible to restore firefox to its default situation. Depending on what has happened add-ons, plugins, or malware may need to be removed.

Good news FOLKS!!!!!,

After beating myself up for the last couple days and getting ready to just get rid of firefox i found the problem.. Oh and are yous going to laugh at this one... LOL

All it is is an add on in your extensions, the add on is called

Freez.com NetAssistence

So all you have to do is disable it and your good to go. For some reason it is not allow me to uninstall but i am going to look for the file and or a few other places, then if i cant find it i will just go to the website and ask how to have the thing completely removed from my computer.

But thats all it was, i disabled Freez.com NetAssistence and now have my blank tabs back and none of the freeze yahoo thing.

Hopefully thats all it will be for the rest of you folks, But once again all seems to be back to normal for me now :)

Thanx.. Kirk Forumotion Support Moderator. http://help.forumotion.com/forum

Firefox needs to fix this. It is an invisable add on, you cannot find and delete it. I will live with it til Mozilla fixes it or use Chrome for a while. Hope Yahoo goes broke quick, f'n a h@l#s

There may be more than one piece of software causing this problem. As I said earlier starting your own thread may be a good idea if anyone has similar problems to those of the Original Poster.

bobhend,
If it is an invisible add-on it may be malware. It may be something that has inadvertently been installed as an plugin. See

• cannot uninstall an add-on
• troubleshooting plugins
• searches are redirected to another site

The problem you are experiencing is not likely to be fixed by Firefox, it is likely it is some change or software downloaded onto your own computer, and you will need to sort that out yourself. A clean re-install of Firefox may be another method of solving your type of problem, but that could be less than straightforward, and I repeat my advice is that, it is my opinion, that you would do best to start your own question about your own problem.

Unfortunately with all these solutions, once fixed it is difficult to re-track to how it was achieved and no-one would expect anyone to spend time trying to put it back. However, a couple of days ago the Yahoo search bar turned up on my Firefox and was 4.0???. I now realise that upgdate to 5.0 failed and likely to do with this issue of redirection to Yahoo search page on a 404 error when the internet is marginally slow.

I removed the Yahoo Toolbar from Firefox, as there was no registration of it in windows control panel, and 'what?' two days later I get the same redirection and irritatingly the Yahoo search page. I then saw a Yahoo button in the menu bar which was not there before and no obvious way to remove it. Eventually under tools Add-Ons, I discovered the nasty little piece of work in extensions; and I was able to uninstall or remove it from there. Restarted Firefox and all is now OK.

Now, I have to agree slightly with John99, as I had a similar problem a couple of weeeks ago on my work laptop. My first action was to retry Windows IE and got the same re-direction problem. Windows IE had a tick box which stopped redirect on error happening. Windows IE was too slow so went back to Firefox and the issue did not happen with Firefox since either. So on two different systems, I can only think this came along with an update of another piece of software. Then again, John99s immediate replies have a hint of redirecting blame, which made me think that automatic updates of Firefox will for me be similar on both laptops. As this did appear as an extension, I can only believe this has been allowed by Mozilla in some sort of agreement; and if so I'm prety well disappointed

@MartinSanderson

Believe what you want, but Mozilla has no "agreements" with any search provider to install hidden changes like that or to allow changes the user doesn't specifically authorize. I am willing to bet that every problem mentioned in this thread originated with programs or add-ons that each user installed from somewhere other than the official add-ons website, or were installed on the sly by a "trusted" program during an update of that program. Some multimedia type plugin programs have been doing that since the beginning of this year.

I also had problems with everything being redirected to Yahoo. I tried changing the proxy setting per edwardjclark but that only worked temporarily.

Instead, I went to "Help" and disabled all plug ins and add ons and then restarted the computer. And tadaaaa - It worked!

When I did this,  Yahoo finally disappeared from the toolbar as well.

fireblight.
Your solution may have been overkill, it may be only one particular plugin that is causing your problem, but of course we do not know what you disabled or which one causes your problem. You mention a toolbar, presumably you have some sort of Yahoo Toolbar Search installed as a plugin; and that is now disabled but not yet uninstalled.

@ redraider89, kirkt, bobhend, MartinSanderson, and others... AWESOME WORK!!!

i am gonna try one of the things i have not thought of that i found in this post... i isolated the add-on problem (the obvious one... Duuurrrrrrrr) as well as the 'yahoo button'... this was not a big deal and with a little looking i easily got rid of it the way John99 pointed out....

now that the entry-level things are out of the way....

i still have a problem with doing a search from the main page... still goes to Yahoo... although after fixing the bar problem i am happy to say i can now do searches from the bar, and once having done this the page works normally...

the problem is now isolated to the hijack operating from the main page itself.. hense... my being here... before i turn to trying 'smitfraud'.. as archaic as it is... it works on every hijack i have found so far.. even if i HATE using it...

the reason for my post here is pointing out another potential problem for anyone having this problem, and, God forbid, having to research for a solution...

@ John99... with all due respect.... your answers were clear and concise... the manner in which you operate is unassailable... i am not shredding you here... please do not take this the wrong way.....

this is a post.. and thereby a thread... about a given topic and in this case a common problem... anyone who searches will find this thread and look here for a possible answer... this is how posts generally work (until they get derailed anyway)...

i noticed most of your responses you were urging people to start a fresh post about the same problem... this is what happens... people look.. find multiple posts saying the same answers over and over that does not solve the problem.. get frustrated.. etc etc etc... i don't have to point out what this leads to...

the people with the problem have pointed out that these suggestions do not work.. this is a sign of something deeper that i feel the developers at Mozilla should be concerned about... it is also a sign that starting a new thread about it will be redundant at this point... (see above)...

now.. to everyone giving John99 a hard time about this and bringing up the ridiculous idea of Mozilla 'selling out'.....

it was not that long ago when Yahoo was the hackers target of choice.. hackers write hijacks right along with other nasty little programs we have all come to know and love... many entry-level hackers who do this childish behavior are also known trolls who love to start 'flamewars'... i suspect rather that this is more likely the source of this plague with Yahoo being the butt of the joke, and Firefox users the victim...

this is only a suspicion...

thanks again everyone who kept the possible answer to the final part of my problem on this page.. where i finally found it..

One advantage of keeping questions to individual threads is that, users system information is usually displayed. If problems are thought to be closely related, in at least the same or similar symptoms are seen I often suggest adding a link between the threads.

Official guidelines do suggest

Create one thread and only one thread for each subject you want to discuss. For support requests, do not re-use existing threads started by others, even if they are seemingly on the same subject. 

I uninstalled Youtube Downloader Toolbar and it fixed it.

I have the same problem In the location bar is : http://www.search.yahoo.com/?fr=w3i&type=W3i_SP,205,0_0,StartPage,20111043,16900,0,16,0 - and it adds the yahoo search - I can't get rid of it. It is not listed in All Programs nor in add-ons (Tools) I tried about:config - keyword.URL - and reset I did search and removed all files with the word yahoo - any help would be appreciated falcon