Firefox: Stop hijacking my home page!

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cincyreds
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Firefox: Stop hijacking my home page!

Post by cincyreds »

Every time an update is done with Firefox (whether to the browser itself or one of the existing extensions), the next time firefox starts it ignores your home page default and foreces itself to its own home page at mozilla. After the second restart your original home page setting is honored again.

One of the reasons I'm using firefox is to avoid crap like this.

Why do the ff developers seem to think it's necessary to hijack my home page on the next browser session after every update? This is annoying and unnecessary.

I cannot see any useful purpose or advantage to doing this. Please - stop!

:)

Dean
mtz1of4
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Post by mtz1of4 »

If you mean when you are using the latest Beta's, it is very necessary so that you realize you are not using a stable version but one that the developers are using to confirm that there aren't any/many bugs that will need fixing and that YOU know how to report any problems you might encounter. If you can't handle looking at one page once, you could always choose to wait until the final release comes out. I have never had a home page change when I have updated any of my 36 extensions.
old FatJohn
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Post by old FatJohn »

Yeah, you must be experiencing some rare bug. Hunt it down if you feel like it.
Guest
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Post by Guest »

Yeah, I am having the same problem as cincyreds. It's annoying.
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Post by Guest »

For crying out loud. Its an 'information' page that will advise of changes etc. Its no worse than any other piece of software that has to toss the info page in your face when starting for the 1st time.

Not everyone is so fat headed and know it all, that a bit of info on why Firefox updated will be appreciated by some folks that are not so savvy...

Now, shut down the PC, get out and get some fresh air....
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cincyreds
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Post by cincyreds »

Anonymous wrote:For crying out loud. Its an 'information' page that will advise of changes etc. Its no worse than any other piece of software that has to toss the info page in your face when starting for the 1st time.

Not everyone is so fat headed and know it all, that a bit of info on why Firefox updated will be appreciated by some folks that are not so savvy...

Now, shut down the PC, get out and get some fresh air....

Wow - I think you're the one that needs the fresh air. I'm not "fatheaded" and don't think I know it all. If I want information about Firefox updates, etc. I'll browse to the site myself and would prefer not to have it forced on to me. This is basically the same thing as spam - it is unsolicited and unwelcome.

You fundamentally don't seem to understand one of the basic premises Firefox has been built on - user friendliness and an UNOBTRUSIVE, highly customizable, open-sourced end user environment. There have been so many rants against IE and other software (Realplayer, etc etc etc) for doing things similar to this, yet when Firefox starts doing the same thing you are so quick to apologize and blame the end user.

I don't care if it's "no worse" than any other piece of software out there. That's not the point, but you obviously don't understand that. I'm curious if you would be screaming at Microsoft if every time you opened IE it browsed to microsoft.com to inform you of MS's latest news. I suspect you would outraged. Yet FF is basically doing the same thing (just not every time, but after every minor update).

I'm trying to appeal to the FF developers to change this aspect of Firefox. It is unwelcomed and annoying and I'm reasonably sure I'm not the only one who thinks so.

FYI, I'm not using a beta version - only the latest stable release. This happens every single time any extension is updated or the FF engine itself is updated.

Thanks,

Dean
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Strephon Alkhalikoi
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Post by Strephon Alkhalikoi »

I've never seen this behavior in Firefox, and I've been using it since 0.8. Perhaps you have a setting that is causing your home page to be wiped out and restored to default?

I'll say it a bit more simply. This is NOT Firefox's default behavior.
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name already taken
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Post by name already taken »

Strephon Alkhalikoi wrote:I've never seen this behavior in Firefox, and I've been using it since 0.8. Perhaps you have a setting that is causing your home page to be wiped out and restored to default?

I'll say it a bit more simply. This is NOT Firefox's default behavior.

This is intended behavior, but has a bug blocking 1.8. They are planning to add a note saying you will only see this page once, and perhaps make further changes later on (probably not before 2.0) so people will not see this if they have imported a home page or something.

Apparently you can change browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone to "ignore" in about:config if you do not want to see this again.
It does get annoying when you install a new nightly and don't see your home page on first load.
I can verify that when installing a new extension it used to override my homepage temporarily, but I don't think I have seen this lately.
In any event the thread title is misleading. It makes it sound as though it is a permanent problem, when in fact it only occurs once.
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Post by mtz1of4 »

I also have been using this since 0.7 and the only time I ever saw it was when I installed one of the Beta's on 1 of my machines. When ever I upgrade or install a new version, I always leave the "Use Default Home Page" (may not be the correct wording) unchecked and my home page is not "hijacked" even once. Maybe when you are installing or upgrading you have to actually read the install OR not do the Default. I do not use the default settings so I'm not sure which may work for you.

Updating the Extensions has never caused this type of action on my three machines.
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cincyreds
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Post by cincyreds »

Thanks all for the replies. I will check out some of the settings mentioned and report back if this behavior can be changed.

Cheers,

Dean
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Merovign
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Re: Firefox: Stop hijacking my home page!

Post by Merovign »

From a hidden vault deep in mozillazine:

If browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone is set to “ignore”, the browser’s homepage will not be overridden after updates.

You get there by typing "about:config" (without the quotes) in your browser, then ctrl-f search for the above key.

It's a really, really annoying feature that they try really, really hard to hide.

And it's Open Source Software, get used to being called a troll or a fathead for questioning The One True Way.

Personally, I've had it about up over my head with the zillion-and-a-half ways that software authors try to override user decisions, especially page hijacks and stealing the focus.

And Captcha codes that don't distinguish between O's and zeros.
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LoudNoise
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Re: Firefox: Stop hijacking my home page!

Post by LoudNoise »

From a hidden vault deep in mozillazine


Since you pulled up a thread from 2005 there is a good chance it was down with them. Locking.
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