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Hayton
Reliable Contributor
Reliable Contributor
Message 11 of 17

Re: Mcafee hijacking browser default settings?

Well, well. Interesting. I wasn't aware of this little issue, so I went into FF to have a look. The other entry in bold that might apply here is probably browser.search.defaultenginename, I think. See the screenshot below for details of what applies in Firefox on my machine. It looks very much as if SiteAdvisor, which uses Yahoo for its Secure Search, somehow muscles in and sets Yahoo/Secure Search as the default search engine. Certainly I can confirm that Yahoo is what you get if you search from the address bar as well as from Secure Seach.

The question is, what would the default be for a Firefox address bar search if SiteAdvisor had never been installed? You might try asking that question in one of the Mozilla forums.

exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 12 of 17

Re: Mcafee hijacking browser default settings?

Hayton just as an FYI, butting in here.

Yahoo is only made default if one chooses it to be so.

Capture.JPG

Elpolloloco
Former Member
Message 13 of 17

Re: Mcafee hijacking browser default settings?

browser.search.defaultenginename is actually one of the ones I noted. The one I was looking for was something else that seems to have been added to mcafee. You should type in "yahoo" in the filter field; that's what brought it up for me. I could identify the correct field if I saw it.

On the other hand, it looks like browser.search.selectedengine is also important. It may be that that one serves the same function as the one I was looking for (perhaps you have a different version of SiteAdvisor). It isn't on my about:config, so that might be it, as it appears that the extra field I was trying to find the name for disapeared after I reset it to default (I sorted them by values, and since it was blank when I reset it, it should have appeared with all the other blank values. However, it did not). What version of SiteAdvisor do you have?

BTW, the default search for firefox (without SiteAdvisor) is google, but it uses a system that recognizes certain phrases and appears to use "I'm feeling lucky." Thus, if you type in "Dell," it will bring up the Dell computer website. If, on the other hand, you type in "Dell inspiron" or "cheap computers," it takes you to a google search for that. I find it very handy. However, you can also change it to another search engine, if you so choose, by setting the specific fields in about:config differently.

Hayton
Reliable Contributor
Reliable Contributor
Message 14 of 17

Re: Mcafee hijacking browser default settings?

My version of Firefox is 3.6.13 - was your 3.6.3 a typo?

I have SiteAdvisor basic, version 3.3.0.176, and in the basic version the "Use this search engine with Secure Search" option is not available, so I get Yahoo as the Secure Search search engine by default and can't change it (see below). I have enabled Secure Search in Firefox, but I haven't made Yahoo the homepage nor have I made Yahoo the (global) default search engine. I studiously avoided clicking either of those two buttons.

I tried typing in Yahoo into the search field of about:config but could not see anything unusual in the list that came up. At least now I know that Google not Yahoo is the pre-SA-installation default. So somewhere there's a glitch that makes SA override the default setting even if you don't specifically ask it to do so. That's probably worth passing on to the development team, and I'll do that right away.

Message was edited by: Hayton on 02/02/11 14:20:38 GMT
Hayton
Reliable Contributor
Reliable Contributor
Message 15 of 17

Re: Mcafee hijacking browser default settings?

My, my, my. That *was* quick. No sooner notified than changed. I'm very impressed.

See below for address bar search and Secure Search results in FF.

Message was edited by: Hayton on 02/02/11 14:34:46 GMT
Elpolloloco
Former Member
Message 16 of 17

Re: Mcafee hijacking browser default settings?

Yeah, I do have FF 3.6.13, athough I never mentioned my version (you may have me confuzed with the OP. I just joined so that I could post the solution I found, since no one on the internet seemed to know how to fix it).

I do have a different version of McAfee SiteAdvisor: 3.1.0.175. That may be why the about:config is different.

But, regardless, I think the general way to fix the problem is just to reset keyword.url, browser.search.defaultengine, and browser.search.order1, and then find anything else suspicious that lists yahoo or Secure Search and reset that.


Granted, that's a pretty vague solution, but since not everyone has the same version of SiteAdvisor, and may even have more than one thing messing up their default search engine, it seems workable enough.

Hayton
Reliable Contributor
Reliable Contributor
Message 17 of 17

Re: Mcafee hijacking browser default settings?

Rats. You're right, I did confuse you with the OP. I even made one of my replies to them, they're probably totally confused by that. Whatever, the situation seems to have changed. No idea what's been done, my SA version hasn't changed, but yesterday all the searches went via Yahoo and today they go via Google. I haven't made any modifications, so the changes have been made elsewhere. Anyhow, I'll leave this topic for now and wait and see what others say.

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