my firefox homepage seems to be embedded with startskins
I've tried everything to get back to the default homepage, but nothing is letting me do it. I've even uninstalled and reinstalled, tried the refresh, etc. Nothing is getting rid of StartSkins as a home page. From what I can tell it seems to be embedded somewhere in Firefox and I can't find it. It seems very well hidden.
Can anyone tell me where I can find this and how do I delete it? I'm using windows 7 and FireFox 44.
Chosen solution
Hey Guys!!! I FOUND IT!!!!!!
If you come across this kind of problem again....I'm using a free version of Advanced SystemCare. I was nosing around in it and found under the "Protect" tab the homepage said startskins and it said "protect your home page" I simply changed it to default and there it is!
Thanks for your help anyway guys, it was driving me nuts.
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Actions llike reinstalling or refreshing won’t help, since your settings will not be changed. Did you try the basic action for setting the home page?
How to set the home page Wrong home page opens when I start Firefox - How to fix
Yes I tried several tips I saw here to reset the homepage, all to no avail. I also just tried your tip on checking the target area of the icon on my desktop. It showed this and nothing else..C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" I cannot figure out where this sucker is.
ON the home page in the top search bar this shows up.. http://startskins.com/7904577807/#
You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar and search for prefs that refer to startskins. You can reset user set (bold) startskins pref(s) via the right-click context menu to the default value.
If you do not keep changes after a restart or otherwise have problems with preferences, see:
You can check in "Windows Control Panel > Programs" for recently installed programs to see if any suspicious software shows up.
- Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features > Uninstall or change a program
- Click the Installed column to sort by this heading
Do a malware check with several malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.
Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware. All these programs have free versions.
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.
- Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - AdwCleaner:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Removal-Tools/AdwCleaner.shtml - SuperAntispyware:
http://www.superantispyware.com/ - Microsoft Safety Scanner:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx - Windows Defender:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/using-defender - Spybot Search & Destroy:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Kasperky Free Security Scan:
http://www.kaspersky.com/security-scan
You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.
- Anti-rootkit utility TDSSKiller:
http://support.kaspersky.com/5350?el=88446
See also:
- "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked
Ok, thanks for the other suggestion. I've been working the about:config thing and thought we were really on to something here.
I found startskins under browser: homepage and reset it to default. Didn't see it under pref. Went to restart the browser and startskins came up again. Damn!!
So went back into about:config and defaulted 4 items under browser homepage to default and pref homepage another 4 items to default. Restarted and you guessed it. I can't believe I can't find this sucker.
Just browsed the link you sent near the end. Looks pretty large to go through. Do you have any other suggestions?
Oh, by the way, I've already checked for any suspicious installed programs and I already use a Malwarebytes program. I also have Norton installed and I used a free Advanced SystemCare program.
Chosen Solution
Hey Guys!!! I FOUND IT!!!!!!
If you come across this kind of problem again....I'm using a free version of Advanced SystemCare. I was nosing around in it and found under the "Protect" tab the homepage said startskins and it said "protect your home page" I simply changed it to default and there it is!
Thanks for your help anyway guys, it was driving me nuts.
Modified
Thank you for your feedback, glad you found it. In fact I was about to post some other suggestions that wouldn’t have helped finding this culprit after all. ;) Could you mark your last post as solution?