Check the shortcut you use to start Firefox to see whether that URL was inserted there.

Right-click the shortcut > Properties > Shortcut tab.

On the line that says target, the last thing should be

firefox.exe"

If you find anything following that, such as the address of the unwanted site, go ahead and remove it.

Hi Jay,

    Thanks for your response. There was a series of letters including start.qone8.com. I deleted that portion of the shortcut; but when I clicked on Apply; I got a message that the  shortcut was incorrect.

I then deleted the shortcut and created a new shortcut by right clicking the Mozilla icon in the start menu. The Start.qOne8 website/search engine came up again. I'm thinking that this think is in the Mozilla folder somewhere?.... Kirk

Is the target line in the Firefox desktop shortcut now correct?

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

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

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 also do a search for this website on the about:config page and reset the related prefs via the right-click context menu.

If you do not keep changes after a restart or otherwise have problems with preferences, see:

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

I'm not 100% certain of the correct "target" for Windows XP, but this is my best guess:

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"