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Automatic Change in Preferences/Search Engine every week?

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  • Last reply by akeiser1

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Every week, at the same time,Firefox changes the search engine in my preferences automatically from Google to Search Marquis, and it also deletes the bookmark for my homepage. How do I stop this from happening? I keep resetting my preferences, but a week later Firefox changes it again.

Every week, at the same time,Firefox changes the search engine in my preferences automatically from Google to Search Marquis, and it also deletes the bookmark for my homepage. How do I stop this from happening? I keep resetting my preferences, but a week later Firefox changes it again.

Chosen solution

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 “ Search Marquis “ Anything.

Also remove SafeSearch, SearchAssist Incognito, FileConverter Addon, SearchLock, DiscreteSearch, WebSearch, Findwide Search Engine, securedsearch

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.


You may have ad/mal-ware. Further information can be found in this article; https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-caused-malware?cache=no

Run most or all of the listed free to use malware scanners. Each works differently. If one program misses something, another may pick it up.

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Chosen Solution

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 “ Search Marquis “ Anything.

Also remove SafeSearch, SearchAssist Incognito, FileConverter Addon, SearchLock, DiscreteSearch, WebSearch, Findwide Search Engine, securedsearch

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.


You may have ad/mal-ware. Further information can be found in this article; https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-caused-malware?cache=no

Run most or all of the listed free to use malware scanners. Each works differently. If one program misses something, another may pick it up.

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Another thought:

On Windows, there is a system-level Task Scheduler you can check to see whether a program is set to run at a specific date/time. Does MacOS have anything like that?

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Thank you all. Just FYI, I did find malware, Mafntask. Hoping that getting rid of it will have solved Firefox issue.