Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Rohkem teavet

Goes to Ask.com instead of staying with Firefox as search engine

  • 6 vastust
  • 29 on selline probleem
  • 11 views
  • Viimati vastas cor-el

more options

When I attempt to do a search using Firefox it immediately jumps to Ask.com to hand me my search information. I want to get back to Firefox as the engine, not Ask.com.

When I attempt to do a search using Firefox it immediately jumps to Ask.com to hand me my search information. I want to get back to Firefox as the engine, not Ask.com.

All Replies (6)

more options

In a new tab, enter "about:config," read the instructions and click "I'll be careful, I promise."

In the filter bar, not the URL bar and not the search bar, search for "ask.com" which you will find 3 lines in bold (maybe more). Bold means they are user set values. Right click on those lines and choose "reset" which will reset them to their original values and remove the ask.com functionality.

When you install software, please read through every page carefully instead of just clicking Next over and over to get through it. Most free software come bundled with obnoxious settings that modify your homepage/default search engine because Ask.com/Yahoo/Bing pay developers to do so. but it is up to the user, YOU, to uncheck the options that allow them do so. This time it was just ask.com, next time it might be something worse like malware or a virus.

Muudetud lostinservice poolt

more options

Reinstalled Firefox. Followed your directions to the letter. When I attempted to do a search, Ask.com did a redirect. Please advise.

more options

I have the same problem. I followed the advice given above and it did not solve the problem. There are no user ask values showing ask.com.

more options

Is that with the about:home Home page?

If there is a problem with the about:home Home page then try to reset the search engine used on the about:home page.
Reset the browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone pref via the right-click context menu to the default on the about:config page and close and restart Firefox to restore the about:home page to its default.

  • Open the about:config page via the location bar
  • Type in the Filter bar: mstone
  • Right-click the browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone line and select: Reset
  • Close and restart Firefox

If that didn't help then delete the delete the chromeappsstore.sqlite file in the Firefox Profile Folder and repeat the above.

more options

That fixed it. It was the browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone pref

Thanks!

more options

It is not a problem with that pref, but with the chromeappsstore.sqlite file that somehow got modified to use Ask.com for the about:home page. Resetting that pref makes Firefox recreate a fresh copy of the about:home data stored in chromeappsstore.sqlite on the next start.