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why do I have ASK.com as a search engine and how do I remove it?

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  • 16 have this problem
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  • Last reply by Xircal

amurch
amurch
more options

By having ASK.com as a search engine, an overabundance of advertisements appear. How do I remove this site as a search engine? It's interfering with my ability to use Firefox

By having ASK.com as a search engine, an overabundance of advertisements appear. How do I remove this site as a search engine? It's interfering with my ability to use Firefox

All Replies (1)

Xircal
Xircal
more options

Please do the following.

  1. Click the orange Firefox button, go to Add-ons, then Extensions and remove the "Ask Toolbar" if it's there.
  2. Next, in the location bar, type about:config and hit Enter.

  3. In the filter at the top, type: keyword.URL

  4. Double click it and remove whatever's in there and replace it with http://www.google.com/search?q= and then click OK.

  5. Close the tab

The URL to add in "keyword.URL" becomes a link in this post, so right click it and choose "Copy Link Location" to copy it to the Windows clipboard. Then hit CTRL+V to paste it. Saves you having to type the whole thing.

To reset your home page, do the following.

  • Go to the site you want to set as your homepage.

  • Click the Firefox button, go to Options | Options | General.

  • Make sure it says "Show My Homepage" in the first dropdown menu.

  • Click the button called "Use Current Pages" to set the homepage to the one you have on the screen.

The option to make Ask your default search engine comes bundled with many 'free apps' these days. See the screenshot for one of them. If you don't watch what you're doing before you click "Next", you'll have the same thing happen again.