Hijacked Homepage!

January 7, 2004 1:49 AM

Anyone know how to fix a hijacked homepage in OS X?

Whenever my girlfriend reboots her laptop, her IE and Safari homepages revert back to comcast.net. Google provides quick fixes for this in Windows, but I can't figure out how they're doing it on an OS X machine.

posted by hal incandenza to computers & internet (7 comments total)

In OS X 10.2.x (Jaguar), launch System Preferences, click on the 'Internet' pane, click on the 'Web' tab. Then set your homepage to whatever you want. That *should* stick for whatever browser you launch.

Of course, if it doesn't, then I'm totally wrong, and comcast isn't playing nice. :(
posted by attackthetaxi at 2:58 AM on January 7, 2004

If you are totally wrong attachthetaxi, then it must mean comcast have installed some hidden software on her mac to reset the homepage every startup. If this is the case, then they are wankers.

Look in System Preferences > Login Items and see if there's anything comcast related in there which would run at startup
posted by derbs at 3:15 AM on January 7, 2004

Also, check /Library/Startupitems and /System/Library/Startupitems - there may be entries there that are system-wide and not displayed in your g/f's Login Items listing. (FWIW, Login Items has moved in the latest release; it's at System Preferences/Accounts/Startup Items now...)
posted by JollyWanker at 6:14 AM on January 7, 2004

I have found that changing home page in IE sometimes won't stick, regardless of settings, etc. However if the problem is in both IE and Safari it could be System Preference settings.

Another good diagnostic is to create a temporary second user account and log in with that. If problems that appear in one account disappear in the temp account, it's user specific (~/library/preferences, login items, etc) If the problem appears in both accounts this issue is system wide.
posted by jazon at 6:58 AM on January 7, 2004

oops, still using jaguar at work :)
posted by derbs at 8:13 AM on January 7, 2004

According to a Usenet thread, they actually load a new control pannel item on your computer. Go to your system prefferences. Third party items are typically down in the bottom pane under "other". It may be labled other things in other versions. Poke around in those to see if you can find a setting you can tweak.
posted by willnot at 8:40 AM on January 7, 2004

Thanks, all. I'll give these suggestions a try the next time I get my hands on the laptop.
posted by hal incandenza at 1:10 PM on January 7, 2004