PC rebooted and now only Bing - FF gone

A couple of hours ago my computer rebooted and updated while I was sitting here, without any particular reason. I am using Win 10 Pro. V 10.0.18363

When The system came back - the only browser in the system was Bing. I have never used Bing. Tried going to my FireFox and the FF icon reinstalled Bing. I have found no way to change that. I can not see any FF at all. All my work in process is gone (6 windows of many sites each).

I have been trying to look at things (with little actual understanding), but I have not figured how to get full access to the system.

Anyone have any suggestions?

I'm confused.

Bing is a search engine, Microsoft's competitor to Google.

Firefox is a Web browser. Bing is not.

"6 Windows of many sites each" -are you speaking of web browser tabs, booksmarks, or what?

It's hard to understand when you are not using standard terminology.

I suspect the OP had FFox as the default browser but since the update the default browser has been reset to Edge (not uncommon, heard of this happening), and of course it has Bing as the default search engine/home page.

FFox will still be installed, just needs to be reset as default browser.

alternety said:

All my work in process is gone (6 windows of many sites each)

If the computer rebooted then of course any open/active windows will be closed, browser or otherwise. Need to change the settings to prevent auto rebooting.

I have moved on. Thanks for looking at the problem.

So far I have figured that MS has now required a non-removable version of Bing (or whatever) into FF. Don't want it. Can't stop it. I actually don't want pretty much all of the MS stuff being forced down my throat. I went through the information for the Bing experience. Generally it says that you have pretty much no real ability to keep things personal from MS. What I got out of it. The application from FF to restore all these windows and contents on power-up no longer appears to exist after Bing.


I have two computers. A fairly old one for the wife. A significantly improved one for me. I have not been able to use my computer since the November update. I have tried everything I could figure out or find in documentation and web sites. I can't find the registration for my Win 10 Pro (it is in the broken machine) so I can start over.
Update after update continued to fail and break my computer. Updates wrecked both my backup drives. Horrid attempts failed to fix. My expertise simply does not extend to the understanding of the effective gibberish from the MS documentation.

alternety said:

...I can not see any FF at all. All my work in process is gone (6 windows of many sites each).

alternety said:

The application from FF to restore all these windows and contents on power-up no longer appears to exist after Bing.

I think I can understand what you are trying to say.

Before Bing took over as the page that opens when you start Firefox, did you have a set of 6 or so tiles you could click on to go to all your frequent sites? Something that looked like this?



If so, then click on the three bars icon top right and select Options....



On the Options page...

1. Click on Home
2. click the down-arrow in the 'Homepage and new windows' box and select Custom URLs...
3. in the box below type about:newtab
4. for the 'New tabs' box select Firefox home (Default)
5. under 'Firefox Home Content' make sure the 'Top Sites' box is ticked

Now close Firefox and start it again.

alternety said:

So far I have figured that MS has now required a non-removable version of Bing (or whatever) into FF. Don't want it. Can't stop it. I actually don't want pretty much all of the MS stuff being forced down my throat. I went through the information for the Bing experience. Generally it says that you have pretty much no real ability to keep things personal from MS. What I got out of it. The application from FF to restore all these windows and contents on power-up no longer appears to exist after Bing.

No. Not true. Incorrect.

alternety said:

Update after update continued to fail and break my computer. Updates wrecked both my backup drives. Horrid attempts failed to fix. My expertise simply does not extend to the understanding of the effective gibberish from the MS documentation.

Given your inaccurate and unsubstantiated statement about FFox, Microsoft and Bing, I would have to assume that any errors are user related, rather than system and/or Microsoft/Windows related. And I suspect rather than "unable" to understanding, but more refusal or unwillingness to understand.

Neither a justification or reason for Windows 10 bashing.

Fabler2 is spot on about this.

In the last year, I have received a veritable explosion of calls about Bing redirect malware on both PC's and Mac's (there are Google redirect variants as well).

What I have found though, is that Malware Bytes doesn't always pick it up.

If you reset the browser in question (and sometimes also the default browser for the PC if it is different), it often goes away.

Someone infected with the redirect will not have the normal options to change the default search engine in most cases.

Here are the instructions for resetting Firefox. Once you have done this, you will be able to do as the others have suggested:
Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings | Firefox Help

Definitely not Microsoft's doing.

For good measure, you also may want to open a command prompt and perform:
ipconfig /flushdns

The small computer is working.

I had previously set up all of the FF settings. I went back and looked around after the update and found things changed. There was a FF update a few minutes before I started looking again. Went through settings again and got rid of the MS applications.

What I tried to say was I had a lot of tabs open in half a dozen windows (from FF).

I may still be saying the wrong thing, but it is irrelevant. I know what happened.

MS recovery drive was eradicated by MS reformatting the drive during an install.

Surely everyone here has had noticeable and frequent issues with MS with it's many updates that fail. And the overall action to suppress anything that is not MS. The "improvements" constitute a very large number of said updates.

Someone with "just a computer" would be prone to jumping off a bridge (or playing with a Covid friend) trying to make sense of the intense jargon (which is frequently a circular chase) which (I think) can not be understood by a simple user.

It used to be understandable. But day after day it gets worse for simple users. Feel free to dismiss me as simple. I have been around a long time. I worked on the original devices (before PC existed) . I have been through the entire path of MS. It has gotten more and more complex. I can't really do much to my computer anymore. It is just too complicated.

What would really be nice would be for MS to release and operating system for civilians. Without all the junk. I don't know how much of the current software is actually used. But I am quite out of touch with the level of useful things vs just enough.

I suspect that Apple is mostly in place because of MS.

Any way, this thread should just be deleted. I appreciated the assistance of those that tried.