1

Ask.com just deleted all search engines from my Firefox. Needless to say, I have never used it - probably some Add-on changed these defaults. I am using Ubuntu 8.04.

I would like all my original search engines back, but pressing "Restore defaults" just brings up Ask.com again; I'm looking for the file where these settings are stored.

How can I restore the default search engines that are supplied with Firefox? What file are they stored in?

By the way, this is a very ugly practice - removing all search engines but yourself? I will never touch their website with a stick

Thanks, Udi

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  • Do you have Comodo?
    – random
    Aug 18, 2009 at 10:46
  • 1
    I think you should remove the google tag since it's only tangentially related to the question.
    – user4358
    Aug 18, 2009 at 19:37

2 Answers 2

1

i am not sure whether ask.com toolbar affects any other search engines or not but i can certainly tell you that there are many other possible side effects of that toolbar. you can take look at strange firefox bug

i would recommend reinstalling firefox without keeping any preferences for next install.

3

Try this tip from the mozilla community documentation pages:

Restoring default search engines

Default search engines that come pre-installed in Firefox currently include Google, Yahoo, Amazon.com, Answers.com, Creative Commons, eBay, and in Firefox 3, Wikipedia. If you have removed any of the default search engines. you can restore them using the "Manage Search Engines "Restore Defaults" button. This will not remove any added search engines. (If the "Restore Defaults" button is disabled or "grayed-out", as shown above, that means that all of the default search engines are still available).

Another way you can restore the default set of search engines is to use the Firefox Safe Mode option, Restore default search engines. This will add back all of the default search engines if some of them are missing. This will not remove any added search engines.

You can invoke firefox in safe-mode from the command line:

firefox -safe-mode

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  • Didn't work. They must have deleted some configuration file, which is really nasty.
    – Adam Matan
    Aug 19, 2009 at 7:59
  • Agree. I'd just reinstall if I were you. Lately there has been a spurt in the number of misbehaving, borderline malicious Firefox addons. It hasn't come at a good time for the Firefox team.
    – user4358
    Aug 19, 2009 at 9:41

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