moving on to IE. bye bye Mozilla. Some other user has correctly said - after years of faithful service you bring this on to us. -- shame on you Mozilla.

Hi there - don't give up on Firefox! Our toolbar is really easy to remove, and we publish the steps right here on our site:

http://asksupport.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2908

If you need any additional help removing it, just drop a note to our support team via this link:

http://asksupport.custhelp.com/app/ask

Best regards, Eric Ask.com

If there is a problem with searching via the default about:home page then try to reset the search engine used on the about:home page.

Reset the browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone pref via the right-click context menu to the default on the about:config page and close and restart Firefox to restore the about:home page to its default.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/about:config

1. Open the about:config page via the location bar
2. Type in the Filter bar: mstone
3. Right-click the browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone line and select: Reset
4. Close and restart Firefox

If this didn't help then delete the delete the chromeappsstore.sqlite file in the Firefox Profile Folder and repeat the above.

Try to reset some preferences to the default with the SearchReset extension:

• https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/searchreset/

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).

A few months ago, I found out how to get rid of this pernicious piece of software. But this week it's back again. (I'm sorry, but it came when Firefox was updated - no matter what you say, I can't agree Firefox is not implicated). My former fix no longer worked.

I have spent hours on the web looking for solutions to this problem. None work now . This one looked the best.

I tried this fix, and it appeared to work. But at next startup of Firefox, there's the ASK homepage just as before. In about:config, all the same ask urls are there in the entries. Ran the SearchRemove add-on, and once again the config file looked clean, but once again, after a restart, everything is back as before.

So something, somewhere, is replacing the corrected configuration parameters with its own junk when Firefox starts.

Looks like the ask*oles at ASK are way ahead of the Mozilla team. They have created a very robust piece of malware.

PS I note they have removed their support website, which they promised will provide a removal tool.

Are you sure you haven't installed the Ask toolbar, while updating your Java? I'm pretty sure Java asks if you want to install the Ask toolbar, I've never agreed and I've never encountered the problem.

In case you did install the toolbar, try uninstalling it. And then resetting your default search engine.

I have never updated Java knowingly, but there are automatic updates that come through. However, there is no evidence of ASK in any of the usual places, like the ad/remove programs list, which would allow me to remove it. (I use Win XP3). And in any case, this doesn't explain what is reverting the config settings for my preferred start page.

We didn't remove our support web site - we replaced it with a new and far better Help Center, and as always it is available from the "Help" link at the bottom of every page at Ask.com

If you've removed our toolbar but are still seeing Ask as your default search provider, please see the "Note to Firefox users" on this page for steps on how to resolve that.

As always, if you need any further assistance removing our toolbar, please contact me via any of the links in the Help Center.