How do I change my home page?
I have many several attempts to change my home page to a different, but every time I restart Firefox, it reverts back to the previous one. I have tried several articles within Mozilla Support (I've lost track of them), but the matter persists. I even went as far as editing prefs.js to edit browser.startup.homepage to the new home page, but is insists on going back to the previous one.
All Replies (7)
Hi !
In case you haven't tried this already:
In the 3-bar menu > Add-ons > Extensions: do you see any extensions that you did not intentionally install ?
If so: remove them.
If this doesn't solve the problem please try this:
Go to the Firefox menu ≡ > help ? > troubleshooting information > profile folder - "show folder", then a new window will open up.
In this window look out for a file named user.js (it might be used to overwrite your custom settings).
In case it is present , delete or rename this file and restart firefox afterwards.
Thank you, Happy112, for responding.
The only extension is for Adobe Acrobat - Create PDF 2.0, that is standard for us. Nonetheless, even if I were to test this out, I don't see a way to remove it. This only comes with an Enable button. (When I enable it, though, I can only disable it.)
I also went to the profile folder, and clicked on Show Folder, but the only JS files I have are recovery.js, prefs.js, and previous.js. There is no user.js.
I'm open to more suggestions.
Question: is there a special reason why you are running an old version of Firefox ?
As you already have tried so many things, let's give this a go:
Try Firefox Safe Mode to see if the problem goes away. Firefox Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode that temporarily turns off hardware acceleration, resets some settings, and disables add-ons (extensions and themes).
If Firefox is open, you can restart in Firefox Safe Mode from the Help menu:
- Click the menu button
, click Help 
and select Restart with Add-ons Disabled.
If Firefox is not running, you can start Firefox in Safe Mode as follows:
- On Windows: Hold the Shift key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
- On Mac: Hold the option key while starting Firefox.
- On Linux: Quit Firefox, go to your Terminal and run firefox -safe-mode
(you may need to specify the Firefox installation path e.g. /usr/lib/firefox)
When the Firefox Safe Mode window appears, select "Start in Safe Mode".
If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode, your problem is probably caused by an extension, theme, or hardware acceleration. Please follow the steps in the Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems article to find the cause.
To exit Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.
If the problem is still there, we will have to keep looking ......
What is the latest version? We're on currently on 45.4.0, and we're on the esr update channel. The update button has been disabled.
I'll look into the Safe Mode angle, and I'll get back to you about that.
By the way, it just occurred to me that if the Administrators can turn off the update button, can they also control the what the homepage would be?
benorman said
By the way, it just occurred to me that if the Administrators can turn off the update button, can they also control the what the homepage would be?
Yes. Firefox allows a special kind of configuration file inside the Firefox program folder which applies to all users/profiles on the system. Your company's IT might be using one of those. To avoid getting you in trouble, I won't suggest how to try to defeat that.
Is there any reason to think the unwanted home page is something your company would be specifying, or is it more likely something that third party software would be pushing?
Jscher2000, I checked with the powers that be, and there was no intention on fixing the home page to any particular site; it was only intended to be an initial page; users are supposed to be able to change their home page as they choose.
We did do some poking around. We came across one file: C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\mozilla.cfg. I was able to change the home page in that file, and it stuck. Yet, that was not automatic through Firefox, but requiring some editing through Notepad. Not exactly efficient. Should Firefox be able to alter this cfg file, and it is simply not doing so?
Hmm, was the mozilla.cfg file originally created by your IT? Such optional "autoconfig" files are generally used only for centralized pre-configuration of Firefox. However, their presence on unmanaged installations could indicate a malware problem.