How can I get rid of the Speedbit address that has been set as my Firefox home page? I am unable to change my home page to Yahoo, Google, etc. through usual methods. How can I fix this?
Windows – Speedbit has hijacked the Firefox home page
firefoxwindows xp
Best Answer
I do not have experience with SPEEDbit, but in general, to restore Firefox's home page settings:
Go to
about:config
Reset (
Right-click -> Reset
) the following preferences:startup.homepage_override_url
browser.startup.page
browser.startup.homepage
I suspect that you could also do a search (filter) for
speedbit
inabout:config
and reset any related preferences. This would hopefully restore other hijacked preferences!Update:
Warning: the following was performed by a professional in a secure, virtual test environment. Do not try this at home.
To provide a more complete answer, I went ahead and installed the SPEEDbit
Download Accelerator Plus
(DAP) and their "recommended" additions or settings:Search Predict
,Video Downloader
, andVideo Accelerator
.Note: You can disable these add-ons by going to
about:addons
.Now, this is what my new Firefox profile looks like:
As you can see, SPEEDbit added a toolbar, changed my home page and search bar.
Let's try to reset the home page using the GUI (
Options > General > Startup
):Note: if you cannot restore the home page using the GUI, you can do so by resetting the following preferences in
about:config
:pref.browser.homepage.disable_button.restore_default
browser.startup.homepage
It seems to have worked...
However,
Download Accelerator Plus
andVideo Accelerator
are still running:So, let's restart the computer to see if our change persists.
SUCESS! (I would post a screenshot, but it would be identical to the one above. You'll have to trust me.)
Your question only covered the home page, but I want us to poke around
about:config
to see what else SPEEDbit has got its dirty little paws into.So, to restore any other hijacked preferences, reset the following:
browser.search.defaultenginename
browser.search.defaulturl
browser.search.order.1
browser.search.selectedEngine
browser.startup.homepage_override_url
keyword.URL
Your profile should now look like this:
And finally, if you want to hide the Video Downloader toolbar, uncheck:
NOT SO FAST!
So, after one last reboot with
Download Accelerator Plus
andVideo Accelerator
still running, the search bar andkeyword.URL
were hijacked again. Is it one of the add-ons? Is is the aforementioned programs? Time to investigate. I'll skip the details and simply post my findings...>:(
Disabling all three add-ons was unsuccessful. The preferences were hijacked again after a reboot.
Unchecking
Mozilla/Firefox
integration under Download Accelerator Plus'sOptions > Advanced
was unsuccessful.Disabling Download Accelerator Plus or Video Accelerator from auto-starting was unsuccessful.
Disabling the Video Accelerator service from auto-starting was unsuccessful.
The only thing that stopped Firefox's preferences from being hijacked was to uninstall Download Accelerator Plus. Once you've uninstalled the software, retracing the above steps should work properly.
Conclusion:
If you want my personal opinion on the software, I would advise you not to use it. Due to it's rogue nature and malware-like appearance (ads, ads, and more ads), I have a hard time believing "265 million users" were satisfied with the product.