You did not include full troubleshooting information, it may have helped us to see what had changed and what is installed.

Some tools will try to promote certain sites and may well change Firefox it should be easy to undo those change if they just relate to home pages or search settings. Other changes may be necessary as part of the function of the tool.

Can you give actual examples you are having problems with giving

• The name of the addon / tool ?
• The version ?
• The home or support site of the software ?
• The download site used ?
• Was other software bundled with what you wanted and did you download that also ?
  If so please give full details of the bundled software.
• What has it changed ?
• Did you try undo the change and if so how ?
  and did that succeed ?

To find the correct solution to your problem, we require some more non-personal information from you. Please do the following:

1. Click the menu button , click help and select Troubleshooting Information.

Now, a new tab containing your troubleshooting information should open.

1. At the top of the page, you should see a button that says "Copy text to clipboard". Click it.
2. Now, go back to your forum post and click inside the reply box. Press Ctrl+V to paste all the information you copied into the forum post.

If you need further information about the Troubleshooting information page, please read the article Use the Troubleshooting Information page to help fix Firefox issues.

Thanks in advance for your help!

These add-ons can be a great help by backing up and restoring Firefox

FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension) {web link} FEBE allows you to quickly and easily backup your Firefox extensions, history, passwords, and more. In fact, it goes beyond just backing up -- It will actually rebuild your saved files individually into installable .xpi files. It will also make backup of files that you choose.

OPIE {web link} Import/Export extension preferences

Hi again.

first of all thanks to you two for your fast help. The addons posted by fredmcd look very promising, I'm defenitivly going to check them out.

mostly @John99: Yes, I did not not include full troubleshooting information, because I already solved the current situation. My question mostly aims towards the future.

I would realy like to protect about:config values, search engines and so on from beeing changed by anything/anybody but myself.

>Some tools will try to promote certain sites and may well change Firefox it >should be easy to undo those change if they just relate to home pages or >search settings.

You are correct with that, in my case I installed Jdownloader by downloading a "webinstaller" from their official homepage. This webinstaller installed a firefox addon called "greener web", installed a nother search engine, changed the "new tab" value and the start page. I was able to return all settings to the default value. All changes are according to WOT spyware.

BUT:

It shouldn't be necessary for me to do this. I don't want third-party tools to be able to alter my settings.

To be honest imho it is kinda ridiculous: When I install an addon from the official mozilla site, a window pops up asking me if I REALY want to install this addon, and that I should only install addons from the official homepage. But a third party tool can install a addon without any form of controll from my site.

The only site I trust with installing addons is the only site where a window asks me if I want to install a addon. That kinda contradicts the original purpose of such a security feature doesn't it?

I am sory if my first post was ambiguous. ATM I have no problems, but I would like to keep it that way.

Bookmark the addon search reset, you can use that to set Firefox search related settings back to their default values if something does mess them up

• https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/searchreset/

I say bookmark because it install resets settings and uninstalls itself.

As FredMcD ays back things up either manually or with the aid of an addon or utility. Backup your profile or at least the prefs.js file. Or be even more proactive create and backup your own user.js file put the important prefs that get messed with in there.

You could go further still and lock prefs with a .cfg file although that is usually aimed more at corporate deployments often employing the cck addon

See also

• Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/User.js_file
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Prefs.js_file
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Locking_preferences
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Locking_preferences
• https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/cck
  • http://mike.kaply.com/2013/07/16/cck-wizard-1-4-finally-available/

Note this is straying outside the scope of advice we normally cover on this forum. If you need detailed advice and discussion you would probably be better starting or joining a thread somewhere else such as mozillazine If you do start a discussion thread feel free to post back here with a link so that others may follow your progress.

It’s very sad, but many of the software down-loaders / installers will trick you into installing not only their program, but other programs as well. You have heard of the fine print in shady contracts, right? Well, some installers you need to look at the itsy bitsy teeny weeny fine print. You are thinking you are giving the installer permission to install the program you want by using the recommended option. But if you use the Manual Option Instead, you discover all kinds of stuff that you do not even know what it is or what it does. From now on, everyone needs to Use The Manual Option to put a stop to this.

Did you find a solution to the original question regarding the protection of the About:config values?? If I open about:config, the browser.newpage.url value points to Bing. I've tried changing it using modify but nothing changes. I've checked the Perfs.js page and it has the correct value but when I click the + mark for a new page it brings up the Bing search engine. Under the Manage Search Engine window, there is just one entry, Google.

I came across this;

Settings Guard for Firefox {web link} Detects and resets changes to settings that are frequently done by add-ons and application installers.

Hi oldfoxer

You can check for recently installed suspicious or unknown extensions.

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes

Check for the presence of a mozilla.cfg file in the Firefox program folder to initialize some prefs.

This also involves the presence of a .js (JScript) file, probably in "defaults\pref" folder, that specifies to process this mozilla.cfg file.

If you have .js files apart from the channel-prefs.js file, that sets app.update.channel, in the defaults\pref folder then open this file in an editor like Notepad and please post its content. Also please post the content of the mozilla.cfg file.

There shouldn't be a mozilla.fcg file present unless you've created it yourself to initialize some prefs.

If you have this mozilla.cfg file then best is to do a clean reinstall and delete the Firefox program folder before reinstalling a fresh copy of Firefox.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Preferences_not_saved#Other_solutions

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