Keeps setting search to yahoo
Hi I'm getting really frustrated where everytime firefox does an update it re-installs all the search engines I've deleted and then resets yahoo as the main search engine. Like others on this site I really dislike yahoo, it's a crappy search engine compared to others. Yes I can go in and re-delete yahoo from the list of engines in the settings but I shouldn't have to keep having yahoo forced on me. It's really annoying and I'm thinking about going back to chrome if there's not a permanent fix. Any suggestions or is it now a "feature" of firefox.
All Replies (4)
Forgot to add, have already checked my add ons. There nothing with yahoo in the description or title. Besides which it's reinstalling a whole lot of search engines that I've deleted. It's just that yahoo keeps being reset as default in preference to the one I've actually selected (google).
You don't have to remove any search engines. Type about:preferences#search <enter> in the address bar and uncheck what you don't want to use.
You said the search changes to Yahoo when you update. It might be because of the removed engines. See if doing the above works.
Firefox is designed to allow you to change your default search engine once and remember it permanently. Trying to delete all the search engines does seem to cause problems for some users, so as suggested above, just turn them off without removing them.
One situation in which Firefox will reset your default search engine is if you use the Refresh feature. This occurs most commonly when Firefox reports that it is running slowly and you can speed it up by restoring default settings. If you click that button, your settings are moved to the desktop inside an Old Firefox Data folder. Do you recall or see anything like that?
Otherwise, problem extensions do not necessarily have Yahoo in the name. For example, searchme from Spigot overrides your search preferences if you have that one, and I'm sure there are countless other bad apples. But until the problem comes back, I won't bore you with steps for investigating.
Finally, beware of deceptive update ads that may appear from time to time promoting Firefox downloads. If in doubt, update only from the About Firefox dialog. This article has more info on that process: Update Firefox to the latest release.
Try to delete the search.json file and possible search-metadata.json and search.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder to reset the search engines to the default.
You can use this button to go to the current Firefox profile folder:
- Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory:
Windows: Show Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox
Firefox will rebuild the search.json file from the default built-in search engines that come with Firefox and the searchplugins folder in the Firefox profile folder.