How can I STOP Firefox from erasing my settings and forcing theirs on me?
One of the reasons why I have come to HATE Firefox is every time it updates, it erases all my settings, preferences and forces its choices on me. I end up wasting a bunch of time each-and-every-time it updates putting things back how I want instead of all the crap it wants to force on me. I hate this about Firefox. How can I get it to stop erasing my settings and forcing their choices instead???
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Why the old Firefox 33 version? You are 11 versions 'behind the curve' by using an unsupported version.
the-edmeister You are right of course but I think the original poster has explained very clearly why she/he doesn't update. msqueue can you give us specific details of a few settings and preferences that are not being retained - this is not normal Firefox behavior.
In my experience, settings changes are rare. Are you getting the Refresh prompt? This often says something along the lines of Firefox is starting slowly and you can speed it up by restoring default settings. That of course results in very significant changes if you have heavily customized your Firefox. Just say no to Refresh.
What security software do you have?
A few years ago when IE was having security issues, I started using Firefox. Every time up popped the notice to update Firefox to install a security patch, etc, I did so. Each time it reset everything back to the default settings--instead of my home page that I wanted etc. After a few years of dealing with it, I switched to Chrome. I have found sometimes you need to sign into websites under one browser (edit your acct), then view the public version to see what they see. So I need to be able to use a second browser, (I gave up on IE), but having to reset everything each time is a royal PITA. I have malwarebytes Pro on each of the 4 computers I work on. This has been the same problem on all 4--plus the office computers. The most recent computer was purchased new 12/2015 and I just updated Firefox. That was where this original inquiry was sent, so I don't know how it could be 11 updates behind.
After updating, it says click to Reload (not refresh). It comes back at its preferences and not mine. That is what I want to get it to stop doing.
You can check the internal version number using the Troubleshooting Information page. Either
- "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
- (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
- type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter
Version should be the second row in the Application Basics table. If that says 44.0.2, the current version, please see this article: How to reset the default user agent on Firefox.
If Firefox always loses settings after an update, something is very broken but I'm not sure what. Hopefully another volunteer will have a suggestion on what to check/test/edit.
msqueue said: "The most recent computer was purchased new 12/2015 and I just updated Firefox. That was where this original inquiry was sent, so I don't know how it could be 11 updates behind."
This forum read your user agent string and posted it to the right of you initial posting. You can see that for yourself by opening this webpage. https://www.whatismybrowser.com/detect/what-is-my-user-agent That is a feature that many websites may use to determine what types of data the web browser being used can handle. You might have problems with some websites when an older version is "reported", older than the version that you are actually using at the website. For instance, Flash video files being sent, rather than more efficient HTML5 video or other newer content types that aren't handled by an older Firefox version. And so on ...
Maybe whatever is resetting Firefox after every update also has your user agent string "locked" or changed it for whatever reason. That can be done via Malware on the PC, and conversely I suppose an anti-malware application could do that too.
Plus cor-el asked which security applications are installed. No answer was provided. There are a number which have features that can prevent data from being "changed" (like a sandbox feature) ; we have seen a rash of incidents where software such as that were causing problems similar to what is mentioned in this thread.
Overall, since this is happening on 4 different PC running Firefox we need to look at all the software these PC's have in common. Too easy to blame Firefox since that is what is directly affected, but "we" know better based upon the low incidence of similar reports that "we" have able to troubleshoot with the user to solve the issue for other users who have reported this happening to them.
Right now "we" know Malwarebytes Pro is on all 4 affected PC's, so IMO that is the place to start looking. Look for preferences in that application which are specific to Firefox and disable anything related to Firefox.
I have no idea what it may be, I have used Malwarebytes in the past but never used the Pro version. And I never let the "free" version run all the time, just used it to "fix" or look for potential Malware; it took too much RAM on my old circa 2006 PC, so I removed it from the "Startup" folder and launched it as I needed it.
alan_r Firefox doesn't reset user data with an update. IMO, "we" first need to get the user updated for security reasons AND then set about trying to figure out what is causing the "data reset". Especially when this "data reset" has been going on for so long! Firefox 33 was released on October 14, 2014. And now with further information that has been provided it appears that "something" may be affecting the UA string that Firefox is 'reporting' to all websites; and is that happening on all 4 PC's? Knowing that might lead "us" to the culprit.