After latest upgrade, new tabs show a Biong search, left window "Related Searches", bottom ad & Bing became default in search bar.
After the last upgrade: 1) Open new tab - rather than thumbnails of frequently visited sites, I now get a Bing search page. 2) All new pages now come up with a left side window of "Related Searches" and an ad running along the bottom. 3) This has been fixed but may be related -- after the upgrade, my search box was defaulting to Bing (I don't use or like Bing). When I reset it, it again changed to Bing. I removed Bing entirely and it came back again. I removed it again and so far it's not shown up as the default again, but it's back in the search engine list after having removed it twice.
Chosen solution
Thanks cor-el. So I reset Firefox and then went to about:config and modified keyword.url to Google's search string. Seems to have finally worked -- we shall see.
Another massive Microsoft f&*% up - people who didn't like or use Bing are more anti-Bing than ever.
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Try to change the new tab by going to about:config and then in that address bar type in browser.newtab.url, and right click it, and there will be an option to modify; click on that. There will be a box that comes up, and you can type in the preferred address you want to show up in your new tabs.
That at least got the new tab to have something of interest, rather than a Bing search. Thanks.
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).
If you do not keep changes after a restart or otherwise have problems with preferences, see:
See also:
You're welcome. Do you have trouble with the home page?
Okay, I will look into the Search Reset extension and the other things later today.
My home page is fine - did not get reset. The solution you gave didn't answer why suddenly Bing search was default or what happened to the frequently used sites feature, but it is a blessing to have a page come up that I care about and NO Bing. So thanks again.
The left hand column of "Related Searches" on every single page is still an irritant. I was able to disable the bottom ad.
So far, after removing Bing (in Manage Search Engines) three times, it hasn't reappeared again yet.
On the run all day, but will try these other things when I'm back at my desk.
Thank you both again. I tried several things. This morning once again, on search Bing came up as default, so I decided to search "how to get rid of Bing". Amazing how many results showed up.
Someone had posted that this problem (apparently many had it) was the result of a Microsoft update where they "accidentally" updated people not using Bing.
I finally reset Firefox entirely and all problems are fixed. I think that is really the only solution. Once again, thanks for your time and assistance!
Well, I THOUGHT this was fixed by resetting Firefox. That did restore the frequent sites on new tab and did get rid of "Related Searches".
Removing webcake add-on fixed that problem.
However, after restarting Firefox and doing a new search, Bing AGAIN came up as the default browser! GRRRRRRRRRRR!
Uninstalling (or disabling) extensions and resetting all prefs should normally fix this if the SearchReset extension didn't work permanently.
- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Preferences_not_saved
- https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes
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Chosen Solution
Thanks cor-el. So I reset Firefox and then went to about:config and modified keyword.url to Google's search string. Seems to have finally worked -- we shall see.
Another massive Microsoft f&*% up - people who didn't like or use Bing are more anti-Bing than ever.
After an MS update, I was staring at a new BING tab in Firefox. Found that MS had secretly created a "DEFAULT TAB" in my add-ons. Went there and deleted it.
All is well again.