Hello Robert.

First of all, and although possibly not related to your problem, I will remind you that the version of Firefox you are using at the moment as been discontinued and is no longer supported. Furthermore, it has known bugs and security problems. I urge you to update to the latest version of Firefox, for maximum stability, performance, security and usability. You can get it for free, as always, at getfirefox.com.

As for your issue, those entries were probably created (if they are bold and set as "user set", they are not there by default) by a third party add-on or program. Make sure they are not the result of an extension you have or had installed. You can always reset those strings by rightclicking them and selecting reset. If they reappear later, it's an indicator that the software that's creating them is still running. Also, make sure your computer isn't infected by viruses or spyware.

You have a large number of extensions as shown in your above post list, so it is highly likely that you will see a lot of entries on the about:config page added by those extensions. If you have entries left from extensions that you no longer have then you can right-click and choose Reset and they will be removed on the next start of Firefox.

Thank you both. I am aware of my antiquated FF version, but as I am behind a very well maintained and monitored corporate firewall and I am rarely outside of corporate or vendor sites, I'm not hugely concerned. I'm sticking with the version I have because I use the extensions that I have (almost every one of them) on an almost daily basis in my work, and unfortunately, some of the primary extensions that I do use daily (Boss key, all customized links, easy gestures, reference this, picsearch, and tab renamizer) are not compatible with the newest release. These extensions really help me to organize, track, prevent clutter, and save clicks.

Anyway, excuse my segue. Um. . . . I'm still looking for a method to replace my context menu "search wikipedia for" with something else.

Try to reset the pref browser.search.defaultenginename on the about:config page or set the pref to Google.

To open the about:config page, type about:config in the location (address) bar and press the Enter key, just like you type the url of a website to open a website. If you see a warning then you can confirm that you want to access that page.

Hmmm. . . It is Google, the one that I want, but it's the search initiated from the right-click menu (in case I'm using a wrong term here somewhere) that I'm trying to change.

Robert, Firefox does not have that feature (right-click menu search) by default. It's probably an extension you have installed. If that's the case, contact its author for support.

I will, however, bring your attention to a very handy feature of Firefox that, when used, is capable of seriously improving one's work flow:

1. select any text in a webpage;
2. now drag (left click and hold) that selection into the search bar (release the left mouse button over the search bar)
3. Firefox will open the search results as if you had typed the selected text into the search bar

Note 1: if you want the search results to open in a new page, simply hold ALT in your keyboard as you drop (release the left mouse button) the selection on the search bar. This ALT behavior is also applied in other cases: for example, if you type something in the location bar or the search bar and press ALT+ENTER instead of simply ENTER, the result will be open in a new tab) Note 2: you may want to make sure, before you start dragging the selection, that the search engine selected in the search bar is the one you want to use. Some extensions (like Tab Mix Plus) will led you drag the selection into the current search engine's icon, which will open the drop down menu to select the engines, and then you can drag the selection to the engine you want. This behavior is not present in default Firefox.

I hope this helps. But remember: if it's a functionality added by an extension, you have to contact its author for support.