How-To Fix MATE Changing Firefox Homepage
Ubuntu MATE used to be bad at hijacking Firefox's homepage, but in Ubuntu MATE 18.04 LTS the problem seemed to have went away. However, it is not completely gone from every machine that has Ubuntu MATE 18.04 or 18.04.2 LTS. My parent's old HP desktop system recently upgraded from Ubuntu MATE 18.04.1 LTS to 18.04.2 LTS and after the upgrade that old problem returned. After a little research online, I was able to fix the problem. I decided to include the fix to my site in case someone has this problem.
As you can see in the image below, my parent's desktop is a HP-P6110T with version 18.04.2 LTS 64-bit and MATE 1.20.1.
As you can see in the image below, my parent's desktop is a HP-P6110T with version 18.04.2 LTS 64-bit and MATE 1.20.1.
I clicked on the hamburger button (Open menu button) in the upper right corner of Firefox and clicked on Preferences. When the Preferences tab opened, I clicked on the Home icon in the upper left corner of Firefox. I noticed that the Homepage and new windows were set to open to https://start.ubuntu-mate.org/. I change the website and when I closed Firefox and restarted it, the homepage went back to https://start.ubuntu-mate.org/.
After search for a while I notice on the Ubuntu MATE Community website that someone by the username of uzi9 said, "This still applies to ubuntu mate 18.04. Thanks for the fix was driving my Father crazy." So I knew my parents weren't the only one using 18.04 that was having this problem. One of the Leader's of the Ubuntu MATE Community provided a fix for those that had the problem with Ubuntu MATE 17.10.
Firefox does not save my Home Page preference
https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/firefox-does-not-save-my-home-page-preference/14826
Firefox does not save my Home Page preference
https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/firefox-does-not-save-my-home-page-preference/14826
Steps to Prevent Firefox Homepage from Changing
1. Open your file manager (Caja File Manager) and click on the pencil icon until your see an icon of a hard drive, home
folder, and your computer user name.
2. Click on the hard drive icon.
3. Double-click the usr folder to open it.
4. Double-click the lib folder to open it.
5. Right-click on the Firefox icon and select Open as Administrator.
6. Enter you Administrator password and click the Authenticate button.
7a. Double-click the ubuntumate.cfg file to open the file in your text editor.
7b. If the file doesn't load in your text editor then right-click the ubuntumate.cfg file and click on the option Open with
gedit Text Editor (or whatever your default text editor).
gedit Text Editor (or whatever your default text editor).
8. When the ubuntumate.cfg file opens, locate https://start.ubuntu-mate.org.
9. Change https://start.ubuntu-mate.org to whatever you want your Firefox web browser to open up too. I changed my
parent's to, https://google.com/. After you make the change, click the Save button. If you want to start with Firefox's
default Homepage then delete the comma and the link after the comma so that it looks like
defaultPref ("browser.startup.homepage);
parent's to, https://google.com/. After you make the change, click the Save button. If you want to start with Firefox's
default Homepage then delete the comma and the link after the comma so that it looks like
defaultPref ("browser.startup.homepage);
10. Open Firefox and click on the hamburger button (Open menu button) in the upper right corner and click on
Preferences. When the Preferences tab opens, click on the Home icon in the upper left corner. Make sure that the
Homepage and new windows is set to Firefox Home (Default) and New tabs is set to Firefox Home (Default).
Now close Firefox.
Preferences. When the Preferences tab opens, click on the Home icon in the upper left corner. Make sure that the
Homepage and new windows is set to Firefox Home (Default) and New tabs is set to Firefox Home (Default).
Now close Firefox.
11. Now open Synaptic Package Manager. Click the System menu, highlight Administrator, and click on Synaptic
Package Manager. When the Authenticate dialog box appears, type in your password and click the Authenticate
button.
Package Manager. When the Authenticate dialog box appears, type in your password and click the Authenticate
button.
12. When the Synaptic Package Manager opens, click the Search icon and type xul-ext-ubufox in the Find dialog box
and then press the Search button.
and then press the Search button.
13. Right-click the file and select Mark for Removal.
14. Then click the Apply button.
15. When the Summary dialog box appears, click the Apply button.
16. Wait for it to remove the file.
17. When it finishes, you can close the Synaptic Package Manager and reboot or restart your computer.
Click on your Firefox icon after your system loads from rebooting it.
Firefox should open up to the correct Homepage.
These are the steps that fix my parent's Firefox browser. I will provide additional solutions below in case this didn't work for you.
If you still have this problem, then try these following methods:
- Goto the location /usr/lib/firefox and delete the ubuntumate.cfg file. That's the file we edited in the above instructions.
- Goto the location /usr/lib/firefox/defaults/pref and delete the all-ubuntumate.js file. (Follow the instructions on step 5 above when you open the Firefox folder. You have to be an Administrator to delete the file.)
