How to Get Rid of (disable) AIM Search Address Bar in Firefox 0
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My sister recently stopped in Chicago to visit for a weekend. She forgot her laptop (or doesn’t have one, I forget), and being the incredibly nice brother I am, I allowed her to use my computer to check email, myspace/facebook, and chat. She’s still an AIM user, and I’ve moved on to a bigger and better instant messaging client, so she had to install AIM from scratch for use on my computer.
During installation, she neglected to untick the option and installed the annoying AIM Tool bar and subsequent AIM search functionality that forwards address bar entries to AIM’s Search page instead of taking you to the URL. It’s not very harmful, but it is adware. They get money for every click anyone makes using this search service, so its a lucrative business. I’m not opposed to making money online, so if you’re interested in monetizing your sites, I’m happy to recommend google’s adsense and adsense for search
Anyway, on to getting rid of this AIM Adware. Removal is an easy process for experienced users… should be easy for novices as well if you follow these instructions.
It’s a three-part process with substeps.
Part 1- Delete the AIM Toolbar Firefox add-on:
- Open Firefox 3.
- Go to “Tools”->”Add-ons”.
- Delete the AIM toolbar.
Part 2 – Delete the keyword.url values for AIM Search:
- Open Firefox 3,
- In the address bar (where you usually type in web addresses), type in “about:config”.
- Where it says “filter”, type in “keyword.url”.
- Right-click the URL and select “Modify”.
- Delete the contents of the field ,so that keyword.url is empty.
Part 3 – Disable AIM search within configuration:
- Now, type in “keyword.enable” in the “filter” field.
- The “value” field will read either “true” or “false”
- Double-click the entry to change the value so that it is “false”
- AIM Search is now disabled in Firefox 3.
That’s it!
WARNING : Do NOT delete or modify anything else unless you know what you’re doing.
Note: This solution has worked for me in Firefox 3. Please let me know in the comments if this was helpful or if another solution is necessary for different versions of FF.
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