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Why am I getting an MSN.hotmail site as my Mozilla home page?

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Even though neither my wife nor myself have an MSN or hotmail account, the Mozilla home page has been "hijacked" by MSN.hotmail. I uninstalled Mozilla and reinstalled it and nothing changed.

Even though neither my wife nor myself have an MSN or hotmail account, the Mozilla home page has been "hijacked" by MSN.hotmail. I uninstalled Mozilla and reinstalled it and nothing changed.

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Has it taken over the Home button and new window (Ctrl+n) or just the desktop shortcut?

Often a home page change can be undone with just a visit to the Options page:

However, in other cases, bad add-ons or external malware override your choice or keep undoing it. Here's my suggested procedure for tracking down and cleaning up bad add-ons and other hijackers. I know it seems long, but it's really not that bad.

(1) Open the Windows Control Panel, Uninstall a Program. After the list loads, 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. Be suspicious of everything you do not recognize/remember, as malware often uses important or innocent sounding names to discourage you from removing it. Take out as much trash as possible here.

(2) Open Firefox's Add-ons page using either:

  • Ctrl+Shift+a
  • "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons
  • in the Windows "Run" dialog, type or paste
    firefox.exe "about:addons"

In the left column, click Plugins. Set nonessential and unrecognized plugins to "Never Activate".

In the left column, click Extensions. Then, if in doubt, disable (or Remove, if possible) unrecognized and unwanted extensions. All extensions are optional; none come with Firefox.

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.

Any improvement?

(3) You can search for remaining issues with the scanning/cleaning tools listed in our support article: Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware. These on-demand scanners are free and take considerable time to run. If they finish quickly and especially if they require payment, you may have a serious infection. I suggest the specialized forums listed in the article in that case.

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