it time for another espisode of ASK BMEWS

 

1. no, actually I don’t recognize the page. I use Firefox, and I have Google as my home page, and once in a great while I visit the Firefox homepage. this is neither of those pages.
   

   Ok then ... this thing is on something called a “start page”?  And the little spinning dog is what is called a “snippet”.  If so, then:

   If you prefer not to see snippets on the about:home page then you can set the browser.aboutHomeSnippets.updateUrl pref to an empty string on the about:config page. Delete the storage\persistent\moz-safe-about+home folder in the Firefox profile folder with Firefox closed ("3-bar" Firefox menu button > Exit/Quit) to remove snippets stored in IndexedDB and make Firefox use a default snippet set. You can reset the browser.aboutHomeSnippets.updateUrl pref via the right-click context menu to the default value to re-enable the snippets and make Firefox recreate the moz-safe-about+home folder. You need to close and restart Firefox after changing the value of the browser.aboutHomeSnippets.updateUrl pref. You can reset the browser.aboutHomeSnippets.updateUrl pref via the right-click context menu to the default value to re-enable the snippets.

   about:config page: browser.aboutHomeSnippets.updateUrl

   I got this by Googling on “how do i turn off that firefox spinning dog”

   “about:config” is the “url” you enter in firefox’s address bar to get to the internal settings on your browser. there are hundreds. type “browser.about” in the search bar at the top, and it gives you this one. My value was set to:
   “https://snippets.mozilla.com/&#xST;ARTPAGE_VERSION%/&#xNA;ME%/&#xVE;RSION%/
P;PBUILDID%/U;ILD_TARGET%/&#xLO;CALE%/H;ANNEL%/&#xOS;_VERSION%/
I;STRIBUTION%/
I;STRIBUTION_VERSION%/”

   the Profiles directory on my Win 7 machine is at C:\users\drew\appdata\roaming\mozilla\firefox\profiles\storage\persistent\ ... I had a couple of malware things hiding in there which I deleted, but there was also \moz-safe-about+home, which has the folder in it called \idb. In idb was some randomly named folder, and it was empty. No other files in idb either. so, no spinning dogs for me.

   and I don’t get any dog, cat, or other critter, spinning or not, when I go to google.com/firefox, which I think it the official Start Page. A start page is also completely unnecessary; you can’t start anywhere: bing, foxnews, kindgirls, ace.mu.nu, whatever.

   Posted by Drew458       08/21/2014  at  01:05 PM  



2. Thanks as usual Drew.
   Will print and follow after wkend.

   Not sure I understand what you’re saying about start page. ??

   I use Firefox, and I have Google as my home page, and once in a great while I visit the Firefox homepage. this is neither of those pages.

   Ok then ... this thing is on something called a “start page” A start page is also completely unnecessary; you can’t start anywhere: bing, foxnews, kindgirls, ace.mu.nu, whatever.
   

   It’s the page I got.  All I did was say yes when FF asked if I wanted to make them my default browser. Said yes and got what you see. I believe that appeared after the last upgrade.

   Posted by peiper       08/21/2014  at  01:44 PM  



3. Your browser is going to the default start page on opening because you haven’t told it to go any place else when it starts. That page is the one you posted a picture of.

   There is a setting in the browser, under Tools/Options/General, in the Startup area, that lets you pick a start page or a home page. If you select “use my homepage” from the drop-down menu, and then enter a URL in the box below that, let’s say something like bing.com, then you’ll never see that spinning dog again because your browser won’t go there when it opens. You can go there later, but you’ll specifically have to tell it to, by entering that URL in the address area. 

   I usually have Google as my homepage, but sometimes I set it to BMEWS or to FoxNews or Bing or some other place.

   Picking a homepage is probably easier than trying to adjust some internal settings.

   Posted by Drew458       08/21/2014  at  03:28 PM  



4. Change your search engine to duckduckgo and it will go away.

   Posted by grayjohn       08/21/2014  at  08:13 PM  



5. As of late, I’ve wondered if Mozilla has farmed out the design of Firefox to consultants that like to huff paint and gasoline fumes.

   An alternative browser based on Firefox, but which does not push the Australis UI on the user:  http://www.palemoon.org/

   I’m sticking with Firefox as long as I can continue to beat it into compliance.

   I changed þe homepage away from whatever crap they had it set to, to a hand coded HTML page with links to my favorite pages.  Screw bookmarks.

   To do this: 
   Tools > Options (under windows) or Edit > Preferences (under Linux)
   On the General tab, set “When firefox starts” to “Show my home page”, then specify something for the homepage.

   If you don’t want anything at all for your homepage, use this:  about:blank

   You could also go with grayjohn’s suggestion of duckduckgo as your default homepage.

   Making new tabs open blank with no crap on them:

   Open a new tab.  In it, put about:config
   Confirm the warning
   Find the browser.newtab.url setting
   Set it to about:blank

   Making the new firefox look mostly like the old:

   Install the “Classic Theme Restorer” add-on.
   Configure it so the tabs are “Squared Tabs (classic)”

   G’luck.

   Posted by Argentium G. Tiger       08/22/2014  at  02:47 AM  



6. Why is there AIR?

   Posted by Rich K       08/22/2014  at  11:58 PM  



7. I stopped using Firefox after this.

   http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/04/why-mozillas-chief-had-to-resign/

   You should too.

   Posted by balaams_ass       08/24/2014  at  09:26 AM  

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