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My Firefox has been grabbed by a Yahoo browser. How can I remove it?

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My Mozilla Firfox now has a Yahoo browser page. Is this supposed to be that way?

My Mozilla Firfox now has a Yahoo browser page. Is this supposed to be that way?

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There are many possible reasons to see a Yahoo page in Firefox. For example:

  • If you installed the special Yahoo! edition of Firefox, you would have Yahoo as your home page and a Yahoo! toolbar
  • Or if you changed some settings yourself
  • Or if an add-on changed some settings for you

Where do you see Yahoo! pages?

To change your home page (appears at startup, when you click the Home button, and in new windows launched using Ctrl+n), see either of these articles:

If you get Yahoo results when you use Firefox's search bar (or address bar) and you want results from a different search engine, see:

If you get Yahoo pages randomly popping up, it's most likely an unwanted add-on such as "Searchme". Here's my suggested procedure for tracking down and cleaning up bad add-ons, hijackers, and ad injectors. I know it seems long, but it's not that bad.

(1) Open the Windows Control Panel, Uninstall a Program. After the list loads, click the "Installed on" column heading to group the infections, I mean, additions, by date. This can help in smoking out undisclosed bundle items that snuck in with some software you agreed to install. Take out as much trash as possible here.

(2) Open Firefox's Add-ons page using either:

  • Ctrl+Shift+a
  • "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons
  • in the Windows "Run" dialog, type or paste
    firefox.exe "about:addons"

In the left column, click Plugins. Set nonessential and unrecognized plugins to "Never Activate".

In the left column, click Extensions. Then, if in doubt, disable (or Remove, if possible) unrecognized and unwanted extensions. Bear in mind that none of these came with Firefox, they are all optional.

Often a link will appear above at least one disabled extension to restart Firefox. You can complete your work on the tab and click one of the links as the last step.

Any improvement?

(3) You can search for remaining issues with the scanning/cleaning tools listed in our support article: Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware. These on-demand scanners are free and take considerable time to run. If they finish quickly and especially if they require payment, you may have a serious infection. I suggest the specialized forums listed in the article in that case.

Success?