Firefox homepage keeps resetting to Google

[Taz]

As the title suggests, the homepage keeps being reset to google.
It must be a hijacker because not only have i reinstalled firefox, but have reset then blocked all cookies from google, changed everything needed in about:config inc keyword.url and it still overrides and changes it back.
Just recently done a purge on my computer looking for malware/spyware etc from another unrelated problem.
One day it just happened thought it was weird and havent been able to change it since, cannot think of anything i either changed visited or downloaded that would of caused this.
What do i have to do to permanently lock down the home page unless i manually override it? Is this possible?
Cheers

[Hoov]

Sometimes it is not the browser or a hijack that changes your homepage, some security software will do it as well. ZoneAlarm locks your homepage, I believe Spybot search and destroy does as well, I am also fairly certain that McAfee and Norton do as well. I am sure other security programs do it as well.

Have you just gone into tools, options and then the General tab and changed it there? Most of the security programs will sense the change and you will get a popup asking about the change. Unless you have told them not to ask.

If you change it, does it stay changed until you restart the browser, or computer or does it not stay changed at all?

Have you tried doing a clean boot of windows to see if it will stay changed then?

There are also a lot of toolbars out there that are not really malware, but border on it, and then can either change or prevent from changing your search engines and home pages. Also in Firefox you have to look at addons. Try restarting Firefox with no addons and see if you can change it.

[Taz]

Have no addons, and it changes every time i open firefox, it changes when i open it up.
I have manually reset all the settings and locked the cookies from google which should apparently fix it according to a few other forums.
Ill get one of those programs to change it, was hoping i wont have to do anything like that but ah well.

[Hoov]

Try booting windows cleanly.

I need you to reboot windows cleanly. To do that please go to the run command and type in msconfig . Once that starts, select selective startup, and then uncheck the load startup items. Now click on the services tab, and down near the bottom of the window, check the box that says Hide all Microsoft Services now go up and uncheck all the services still listed, make sure you scroll down the list if need to unselect all the non Microsoft services. Now click apply, then click OK and reboot the computer.

Try changing your homepage. The kill FireFox then restart it and see if it stays or not.

run msconfig and select normal startup then click apply then OK and reboot again. If the homepage stayed the same when you rebooted cleanly, then you know it is not Firefox causing the problem, but a program you have running, or malware.

[Taz]

Still keeps changing even on a clean boot, so that pinpoints it to firefox?

[Hoov]

Or malware. A clean boot does not always stop malware from running. Other than this problem, how does the computer run?

[Taz]

excellent, not a single other problem (well apart from the other one being investigated)
Which does remind me, we did that extensive malware search and came up with nothing, how much more can we dig for malware? would of thought it would of showed up then over anything else

[Hoov]

  Forgot about that. Chances are you have dug enough.

Does this only happen in FireFox?

[Taz]

Just tried it in IE, no hassles, so yes only in Firefix - really disappointing as ive used it for years and always loved and preferred it not a single problem now this   
As an extra step i even went as far as completely uninstalling my A/V to make sure it wasnt overriding it - still did it!
So it does it from a clean boot, without A/V, with no malware or hijackers and a fresh DL and install/update of firefox - im lost!
I find it weird though how even after changing all relevant settings in about:config to force it to basically reset firefox it still overrides and changes every time i open, but if its firefox why does my fresh install still do it?
Trust me to get 2 rare and/or weird problems!

[Hoov]

When you did the clean install, did you get rid of the previous installs profile settings / folder?

[Taz]

I checked the box that said get rid of all user files and what not - does this get rid of absoutely everything or is there something else i need to manually get rid of?

[Hoov]

Go into your profile folder and edit the file named prefs.js, look for this key user_pref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://www.whatever.org/"); and see if it has the page that you want as a homepage.

[Taz]

Its coming up as google, and when i change it and restart firefox it changes back, so i changed it and changed it to a read only file - seems to have done the trick.
Will just have to manually change it the hard way every time.
Not the ideal way to fix it, but a fix is a fix i guess! lmao