How to remove IncrediMail MyStart from the Firefox browser
Users of the popular IncrediMail may have noticed that the service has modified the default search engine and homepage of the Firefox web browser after installation. The free version of IncrediMail will make those changes to the Internet browser unless you select the custom installation option during program installation and uncheck the "Make MyStart by IncrediMail my default search engine" and "Make MyStart by IncrediMail my homepage".
If you do not, you end up with a new home page that opens up in the browser and a new default search engine. Let me show you how you can reverse the changes if you have missed to uncheck the options during the installation of the mail program for Windows.
Changing the Firefox home page
Open the Firefox web browser and click on Firefox > Options to open the preferences of the web browser. Click on General if the tab is not already active and locate the Home Page preference here. Here you have the following three options:
- Use Current Page - Sets the new home page to the web page currently shown in the browser.
- Use Bookmark - Pick the new home page from a bookmarked page
- Restore to default - Restores Firefox's default homepage
You can edit the Home Page field manually as well. You can even add multiple home pages in the browser by separating them with " | ", e.g. https://www.ghacks.net/ | http://www.loginhelper.com/
Changing the search engine
The search engine may have also been modified. When you run searches in Firefox, you may notice that they use the IncrediMail MyStart search engine and not the default search engine, e.g. Google or Bing, that you have used before the program installation.
If the search form is displayed in the browser next to the address bar do the following:
Click on the down arrow next to the search engine's name and select the search engine that you want to use in Firefox. If the form is not displayed, do the following:
- Enter about:config into the browser's address bar. You may see a warning notification here, accept it to continue
- Enter browser.search.selectedEngine into the Search form at the top
- Double-click the value under Preference Name and enter the name of the search engine that you want to use, e.g. Google or Bing.
- Note that you can only enter names of installed search engines here.
- Restart the browser afterwards and test the change
Last Step
IncrediMail monitors the home page and default search engine setting and will notify you if they have been modified so that MyStart is no longer the home page or search engine. You need to modify two program settings to block those notifications.
- Click on Tools > Options in the IncrediMail program window.
- Switch to the Security tab here.
- Uncheck the following two entries under Search Settings:
- Notify me about changes in my home page settings
- Notify me about changes in my default search settings
- Click ok afterwards to save the new preferences.
Once you have made the final change your system setting's should be back to normal. If you have any issues with the procedure or additional tips and information let me know in the comments.
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Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.
When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?
Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.
I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.
I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.