FireFox states my laptop is running W 7 32bit but in fact it is W10 64 bit. how can I alter firefoxes information?
When I use search facility on my firefox home page it immediately goes into yahoo! to do the search. I am wondering if this is because: My laptop runs Windows 10 64 bit but when I look at details for Firefox it says my laptop is running Windows 8 32 bit. I'm not very computer literate so I'm confused. How can I make Firefox agree that my laptop is running W10 64 bit? I have just got a smartphone and I want to make sure my laptop is OK before I link them with wi-fi. Or should I go 'the whole hog' and replace my laptop with an up to date Samsung laptop? I also want to be able to have a safe 'master password' so that all my passwords are hidden and I just have one password to remember, and I can use this same password on both my laptop and smartphone. Both my laptop and smartphone are Samsung. I use email services: Thunderbird, Plusnet (to keep my BT email add., I pay BT monthly - this has now somehow become BT Yahoo!). When I bought the smartphone the shop opened an email account with gmail in my name. My landline is with Plusnet. I would be so pleased to receive any help you can give me. Many thanks, B. J. ps I want be able to reply to you until tomorrow.
All Replies (2)
Your System Details shows;
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:56.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/56.0
Windows 10 Firefox v56 64 bit
Type about:addons<enter> in the address bar to open your Add-ons Manager. Hot key; <Control> (Mac=<Command>) <Shift> A)
In the Add-ons Manager, on the left, select Extensions. Remove “ yahoo “ Anything.
Also look for SafeSearch, SearchAssist Incognito, FileConverter Addon, SearchLock, DiscreteSearch, WebSearch
Now do the same in the computer’s Programs Folder.
Windows: Start > Control Panel > Uninstall Programs. Mac: Open the Applications folder. Linux: Check your user manual.
bjsmith220 said
When I use search facility on my firefox home page it immediately goes into yahoo! to do the search.
I don't think this has anything to do with your OS version. As FredMcD indicates, it's most likely due to either:
(1) You are still using the built-in setting of Yahoo as your default search engine (for North American installations). To change that, see: Change your default search settings in Firefox.
(2) You have a bad add-on. In reviewing the list, don't limit yourself to ones that contain the word Yahoo, but be suspicious of anything that mentions "search" and anything you do not remember installing for a good reasons. If in doubt, disable.
...when I look at details for Firefox it says my laptop is running Windows 8 32 bit.
Where do you see that information? Usually Firefox will have the correct information on the Troubleshooting Information page. Either:
- "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
- (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
- type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter
In the first table on the page, check the Version row and the OS row.
Regarding 32-bit and 64-bit, Firefox has generally promoted the 32-bit version for all users until very recently, so it's normal to be running the 32-bit version of Firefox on 64-bit Windows. If you want to switch, please see this article first: How to switch from 32-bit to 64-bit Firefox.
I also want to be able to have a safe 'master password' so that all my passwords are hidden and I just have one password to remember, and I can use this same password on both my laptop and smartphone.
While Firefox for Windows and Firefox for Android can both manage passwords, and you can use the Sync service between them, and you can set a master password for each one, actually, the master password is not synchronized, that is to protect data locally and needs to be set locally on each of your Firefoxes. See also: Use a Primary Password to protect stored logins and passwords.