In a new tab, enter "about:config," read the instructions and click "I'll be careful, I promise."

In the filter bar, not the URL bar and not the search bar, search for "ask.com" which you will find 3 lines in bold (maybe more). Bold means they are user set values. Right click on those lines and choose "reset" which will reset them to their original values and remove the ask.com functionality.

When you install software, please read through every page carefully instead of just clicking Next over and over to get through it. Most free software come bundled with obnoxious settings that modify your homepage/default search engine because Ask.com/Yahoo/Bing pay developers to do so. but it is up to the user, YOU, to uncheck the options that allow them do so. This time it was just ask.com, next time it might be something worse like malware or a virus.

Reinstalled Firefox. Followed your directions to the letter. When I attempted to do a search, Ask.com did a redirect. Please advise.

I have the same problem. I followed the advice given above and it did not solve the problem. There are no user ask values showing ask.com.

Is that with the about:home Home page?

If there is a problem with the about:home Home page then try to reset the search engine used on the about:home page.
Reset the browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone pref via the right-click context menu to the default on the about:config page and close and restart Firefox to restore the about:home page to its default.

• Open the about:config page via the location bar
• Type in the Filter bar: mstone
• Right-click the browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone line and select: Reset
• Close and restart Firefox

If that didn't help then delete the delete the chromeappsstore.sqlite file in the Firefox Profile Folder and repeat the above.

That fixed it. It was the browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone pref

Thanks!

It is not a problem with that pref, but with the chromeappsstore.sqlite file that somehow got modified to use Ask.com for the about:home page. Resetting that pref makes Firefox recreate a fresh copy of the about:home data stored in chromeappsstore.sqlite on the next start.