Hi. I too had a Conduit problem. Mine i finally fixed by reformatting my hard drive. :{ A bit extreme! These people may be helpful tho. ... http://www.malwareremovalguides.info/pup-optional-conduit-removal-intructions/ I wish you luck.... Conduit is very hard to remove.

When you edit browser.newtab.url, what happens:

(1) It refuses to be changed. Check the Windows Control Panel for some malware named Search Protect.

(2) It is changed, but upon pressing Ctrl+t to open a new tab, it is ignored. Check for a bad extension as described further down this post.

(3) It works temporarily, but the next time you exit and start Firefox, the New Tab URL is back to Conduit. Check for startup change issues as described further down this post.

Bad extensions often are installed externally to Firefox. I suggest starting here:

Open the Windows Control Panel, Uninstall a Program. Click the "Installed on" column heading to group the infections, I mean, additions, by date. This can help in smoking out undisclosed bundle items that snuck in with some software you agreed to install. Take out as much trash as possible here.

Then, in Firefox, open the Add-ons page using either:

• Ctrl+Shift+a
• "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons

In the left column, click Extensions. Then, if in doubt, disable (or Remove, if possible) unrecognized and unwanted extensions.

Often a link will appear above at least one disabled extension to restart Firefox. You can complete your work on the tab and click one of the links as the last step.

Finally, you can "mop up" remaining issues with the scanning/cleaning tools listed in our support article: Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware.

If Firefox loses settings changes between sessions, check this article for potential culprits: How to fix preferences that won't save.

Also, be advised that some utility software such as Advanced SystemCare and/or its Surfing Protection feature can protect you from unwanted changes in a manner that also overrides your own changes.

Quote: still the string in config is not editable.

Does that pref has the locked status?

Check for the presence of a mozilla.cfg file in the Firefox program folder to initialize some prefs.

This also involves the presence of a .js (JScript) file, probably in "defaults\pref" folder, that specifies to process this mozilla.cfg file.

If you have .js files apart from the channel-prefs.js file, that sets app.update.channel, in the defaults\pref folder then open this file in an editor like Notepad and please post its content. Also please post the content of the mozilla.cfg file.

There shouldn't be a mozilla.fcg file present unless you've created it yourself to initialize some prefs.

If you have this mozilla.cfg file then best is to do a clean reinstall and delete the Firefox program folder before reinstalling a fresh copy of Firefox.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Preferences_not_saved#Other_solutions