The Avast Browser Cleanup Tool has apparently been fixed.
Perhaps not.
This morning as a privileged user I logged on, started up Firefox, and the default home page had changed from its multi-year "wunderground" URL to a Google search URL of "
https://www.google.com/search/?trackid=sp-06".
Background:
This morning a non privileged user logged in, started up Firefox, and an Avast warning popped up stating that an add-on (Animal Crossing Music) was less than desirable, suggesting to delete it. When I asked the user about that she said she had installed the add-on under =Chrome=, not Firefox; not knowing HOW the add-on got installed under Firefox (maybe ALL browsers during its installation?) I sat down and directed Avast to go ahead and delete it. Avast asked for a privileged raising of permissions (password for privileged user) so I did so (though it wasn't clear to me why the removal of an add-on required more permission than the installation of it). Avast THEN said the default search provider had to be set. This seemed strange but I just went ahead and set it to Google since that's what she used.
I then logged out as the non privileged user and logged in as myself.
Starting up Firefox I found that =my= Home page had changed from the above weather site to the above Google search. Since this was bizarre I started internet searching for potential causes and ended up on this thread (among others on the Avast site).
So, anyway...Heads Up! It doesn't seem...uh...appropriate that removing an add-on should require resetting a default search provider, nor should that have happened across login IDs. There appears to be a problem with this particular piece of Avast coding that is confusing IDs, minimally, and certainly appears to be doing WAY more than it should need to (removing an add-on shouldn't touch search defaults, right?).
[apologies if this is not the appropriate thread - there appear to be more than one thread touching on this "default search provider" problem and THIS thread claims it's fixed, so I've posted this here]
