Yahoo Toolbar messes up Location Bar Search

Remove the Yahoo Toolbar

1. "Ctrl+Shift+A" (Add-ons Manager)
2. Select Puzzle piece on left-side for Extensions List
3. Find "Yahoo Toolbar" and click on "Uninstall" button, and restart Firefox. (if you really need to keep the Yahoo toolbar, you can hide the toolbar instead with customize, and still change all the search defaults as below)

Then to fix the default search engine used at the Location Bar, change the value of keyword.URL in about:config to one of the values shown in Location Bar search at MozillaZine.

• Google Search (Google search results page)
  http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=

1. type in about:config into the location bar (in a new tab)
2. if the warning message nonsense comes up uncheck the box before dismissing the dialog message
3. filter on keyword
4. right-click on keyword.URL and choose "modify" then paste in the Google search engine string of your choice.
5. filter on defaulturl
6. right-click on browser.search.defaulturl (if it exists)and again choose "modify" then paste in the Google search engine string of your choice.
7. filter on ytff
8. right-click on yahoo.ytff.search.popup_src (if it exists) and again choose "modify" then paste in the Google search engine string of your choice, if adventurous might see if "reset" would remove and see if gone in next session (well not for those keeping the extension).

--used in https://support.mozilla.com/questions/850287

Avoiding the problems: Many software installations contain additional baggage known as crapware. The Yahoo Toolbar is packaged with Java picture

More information on ask.com, Yahoo Toolbars which involve extensions, not just changes to the home page.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Problematic_extensions
• Uninstalling toolbars - MozillaZine Knowledge Base
  http://kb.mozillazine.org/Uninstalling_toolbars

More information on configuration variables available in about:config entries and for users not familiar with the process there is about:config (How to change).

Tried this....DOES NOT WORK!!!

All the above solutions have the same error about them... the extensions manager with the Yahoo Toolbar enabled for some reason does not work (makes Yahoo sound kinda like a virus.... hmmm....). You can just uncheck the toolbar but you are still left with an annoying "Yahoo!" drop-box on the menu bar complete with unwarranted "!".

So this is how I removed it.

-Select "Help" either by clicking the arrow next to the top left Firefox logo or clicking the drop-box if you have the menu bar enabled.

-From there select "Restart with Add-ons Disabled"

-When Firefox restarts and displays a check list select "Disable all Add-ons" and then click "Make Changes and Restart".

-Now, this next step can go one of two ways; All being well, you can now press "Ctrl+Shift+A" and have the add-ons manager load and when you click "extensions" it should now display them! And from here you check all the ones you want (don't forget to do the same for plug-ins) and finally remove the damn Yahoo Toolbar as it should AT LAST be listed.

-If the extensions STILL arn't listed, don't worry. There's a work around. Go to https://addons.mozilla.org/ and search for a useful add-on (I recommend Ad-Block Plus or UnPlug). When the search comes back click "add to Firefox", wait for the timer to count down and click "install". The bar at the top should now say "click to restart firefox" which you then do.

-When Firefox restarts you should now be at the extensions menu with all extensions listed. (And if not, "Ctrl+Shift+A" should bring it up)

I hope this helps!