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The Firefox start up page shows a red shield with a white mask and wonder if it is safe.

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  • Last reply by azho

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The Firefox start up page first briefly shows the swirling fox image but then the image immediately switches to a red shield with a white mask imposed upon it. The text under the search bar refers to privacy issues. We are wondering if this page and the shield indicate an unsafe situation.

The Firefox start up page first briefly shows the swirling fox image but then the image immediately switches to a red shield with a white mask imposed upon it. The text under the search bar refers to privacy issues. We are wondering if this page and the shield indicate an unsafe situation.

All Replies (3)

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No, this is a message related to world privacy day, just promoting the ways that Firefox and Mozilla can protect your privacy. The logo will go away in a day or two

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If you want to stop Mozilla from ever changing the "brand logo" on the default homepage and you feel venturesome, here's how to "fix it". Type about:config in the Location Bar and hit Enter. Accept the "dragons" message to see the advanced prefs screen. Use the Search field at the top to enter the pref mentioned below.

You can set the browser.aboutHomeSnippets.updateUrl pref to an empty string to stop your Firefox from retrieving "snippets" and brandLogo changes. Right-click that pref and select Modify then clear the Value for that pref in the box that appears, then click OK. That will also disable the "snippets" that appear below the Search container on the default homepage.

Then you need to open your Profile folder, via Help > Troubeshooting Information > Profile folder >> Show Folder button. Then close Firefox. With your Profile folder open and Firefox closed ("3-bar" Firefox menu button > Exit/Quit), wait minute or so, then delete the storage\moz-safe-about+home folder in the Firefox profile folder to remove the brandLogo and snippets stored in IndexedDB to make Firefox use the default brandLogo and a default snippet set.

Then restart Firefox for those changes to take effect.


If you should later change your mind about those modifications, you can reset the browser.aboutHomeSnippets.updateUrl pref via the right-click context menu and use Reset to get the default value back to start using the storage\moz-safe-about+home folder again.

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Thanks for the quick replies. Much appreciated!