Computer help: How to keep your homepage when Firefox does an update
Q: I use Firefox as my web browser and IGHome for my homepage. About every month, Firefox updates itself and when it does it overrides my IGHome page with another page. The only way I seem to be able to get it back is to perform a system restore. How can I fix this?
-- Michelle W., Jupiter
A: It sounds like you may not have set IGHome as your desired homepage in Firefox. Because of that, when Firefox updates (which does happen frequently, it must be said), Firefox replaces your homepage with one of its choosing instead of keeping your preferred IGHhome page as your starting point.
This can be fixed by telling Firefox to keep IGHome as your home page of choice in your browser's settings. To do this, launch Firefox and load your IGHome page into the browser. After doing that, copy the URL of your homepage by highlighting it in the address bar with your cursor and hitting CTRL+C on your keyboard (to copy the address).
After that, click on the three stacked bars in the upper right corner of the Firefox browser window (below the "X" to close out the window). This will open the browser's main menu, and from that click on "Settings" -- this will open the browser's Settings panel in a new tab.
In that tab, click on "Home" in the left hand navigation area and then in the center well look for the sub-category titled "Home." There, you'll see a line reading, "Homepage and new windows" with a dropdown menu beside it. Click on the dropdown, then on the selection reading "Custom URLs." A blank will appear under that heading when you do -- put your cursor there and then paste (CTRL+V on the keyboard) the URL you copied earlier of your IGHome page there and then close the Settings tab. This will set your IGHome page as your Firefox home page of choice from here on out, regardless if Firefox updates itself in the future or not. To load it if it's not appearing, simply click on the "Home" (house) icon in the main navigation bar in Firefox.
As for using System Restore to fix this: This is a tool that helps you return your system to a more stable state if you ever experience failure or data corruption due to a faulty system or program update or installation. In this case, that's not happening and instead of fixing the problem using System Restore you're actually removing the latest Firefox update that was just installed and also telling Firefox to try to re-install that same update again in the near future. It's a sort of unnecessary cycle, if you will. Instead of using System Restore this to correct this problem try the information provided above instead.
On a side note: IGHome was a customizable home page feature set up by Google around 2005. While still operational and available for use in any browser these days, it should be noted that IGHome has not been supported technically by Google or any other company since 2012. While you don't have to stop using it because of that, switching to the Google Chrome browser and using the standard customizable Google home page available on it may be an easier means of maintaining a personalized home page in the future.
If interested Google Chrome can be downloaded for free from the following URL: https://www.google.com/chrome/downloads/
Tips for setting up a personalized home page with the Chrome browser (free Google account creation and sign-in required) can be found here: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95314?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop
Untangling the web
Have you received a static PDF that needs to be updated and edited? If so, don't retype it or scan it in and instead use this virtual OCR service instead. (OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition by the way.) To use, simply upload the static PDF (which is a PDF where the words and text cannot be edited or highlighted) and then use the tools found here to convert it to an editable Word file within minutes, often with the original formatting intact. The service is free and secure, with all documents uploaded being deleted from the server a short while after upload.
Contact Eyal Goldshmid at egoldshmid@yahoo.com
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Keeping your homepage after a Firefox update
