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Ask.com hijacked my Firefox browser (Windows 7 on a laptop). Please help.

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  • 3 have this problem
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  • Last reply by CoryMH

mornlea
mornlea
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I think it happened from visiti ng some site which wasn't even ask.com, but I don't remember which site because it's been a week ago.Now when I open the browser, the 1st tab says "Ask Home Page". And it's posted a different set of shortcuts on the body of the folder. I didn't even visit ask.com so phooey on them. I want to get Firefox back. 

As well, something has happened to the star that saves my favorites, but that may be a second problem and unrelated. (It says 'edit bookmark' and in the dialog box underneath it says 'remove bookmark'. ) It won't save as I want it to do.  Thank you for looking at and considering my problem. I'd be ost grateful if you can offer me some help.
I think it happened from visiti ng some site which wasn't even ask.com, but I don't remember which site because it's been a week ago.Now when I open the browser, the 1st tab says "Ask Home Page". And it's posted a different set of shortcuts on the body of the folder. I didn't even visit ask.com so phooey on them. I want to get Firefox back. As well, something has happened to the star that saves my favorites, but that may be a second problem and unrelated. (It says 'edit bookmark' and in the dialog box underneath it says 'remove bookmark'. ) It won't save as I want it to do. Thank you for looking at and considering my problem. I'd be ost grateful if you can offer me some help.

All Replies (1)

CoryMH
CoryMH
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Hello,

Please see the guide for more details (if my instructions below don't work):

To remove the search bar, you will need to uninstall it from your Control Panel > Programs and Features, and from your list of installed add-ons:

  • Tools (or New Fx Menu) > Add-ons > Extensions
  • Select the toolbar you wish to remove.
  • Click the Remove button.
  • Click "Restart now" if it pops up. Your tabs will be saved and restored after the restart.

After Firefox restarts, install the Search Reset Tool. This will reset your search and home page settings back to default and then uninstall itself.

For further information, please read Remove a toolbar that has taken over your Firefox search or home page.

Note: If you restart Firefox and find that your preferences were not saved, make sure that you don't have any third party software, such as an antivirus, that prevents changes to your preferences. See How to fix preferences that won't save for more details and steps.

It might also be a good idea to run some antimalware scans to remove all malicious files that might be left over on your computer, try these *free* ones which can run alongside your existing antivirus software (so long as you don't run real-time protection for more than one software):

If you have already bookmarked a link, it will ask you if you want to Edit/Remove it. If you want to duplicate the bookmark or make changes to a bookmark folder, you can go to:

  • Bookmarks (or Bookmarks-29) > Show All Bookmarks
  • Navigate your bookmarks list there and copy/paste/edit bookmarks

Note that bookmarks you add but don't manually place anywhere will be in the "Unsorted Bookmarks" folder.

Modified by CoryMH