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I can't rid of search.ask when I open new tab. also keep getting facebook fake survey 9 virus attack each time i use firefox.

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  • Last reply by cor-el

temizdeniz
temizdeniz
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I used the firefox help menu to get rid of "search.ask" which insinuates itself in place of my default addressbar (Google) each time i open a new TAB (though Google still acts as default in openning new WINDOW). The help menu says go to about:config, and I already tried it to no use.

Secondly and possibly related, I get a caught web attack message from Norton saying "Facebook Fake Survey 9" has attacked, each time I open Firefox for the past 2 weeks now. Doesn't happen with other browsers (explorer, for instance). I find it odd that although Norton has caught it hundreds of times the attack is not stopped for good. How can I stop it?

Thank you.

I used the firefox help menu to get rid of "search.ask" which insinuates itself in place of my default addressbar (Google) each time i open a new TAB (though Google still acts as default in openning new WINDOW). The help menu says go to about:config, and I already tried it to no use. Secondly and possibly related, I get a caught web attack message from Norton saying "Facebook Fake Survey 9" has attacked, each time I open Firefox for the past 2 weeks now. Doesn't happen with other browsers (explorer, for instance). I find it odd that although Norton has caught it hundreds of times the attack is not stopped for good. How can I stop it? Thank you.

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cor-el
cor-el
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You can use the SearchReset extension to reset some preferences to the default values.

Note that the SearchReset extension only runs once and then uninstalls automatically, so it won't show on the "Firefox > Add-ons" page (about:addons).

You can check if you have a user.js file in the profile folder to initialize some prefs on each start of Firefox.

Such a user.js file is only present if you or other software has created it, so normally it wouldn't be there. You may want to check its content with a plain text editor if you didn't create this file yourself.

The user.js file is read each time you start Firefox and initializes preferences to the value specified in this file, so involved preferences can only be changed temporarily for the current session.

You can check for problems with preferences if this didn't help.

Rename or delete the prefs.js file and possible numbered prefs-##.js files and a possible user.js file to reset all prefs to the default value.

You can use this button to go to the Firefox profile folder:

  • Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder (Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder)