How can I get back lost search engines?

I have the "add to search bar" add on, and went to a lot of trouble to collect the search engines I use. For some reason, I tried to download Zone Alarm, and it forced me to "add" their search engine, for a download that turned out to start another download, that crashed anyway. And, it took out all my search engines, and I can't get them back. If I knew where they were, and could drive there, I'd set fire to Zone Alarm's offices for this. So is there no way to recover these, there is a folder full of "search plugins" in the Mozilla folder, but none of them are active. Please don't tell me about how to manage the search engines, I know all that, I want to put back lost ones, and there needs to be a way to back those up, I know there is, it's a matter of finding it, is all. It's not in the registry, like IE's are, I went through that with that one, too.

 

Hi Microsuck, Welcome to WindowsBBS. I fear you will need a visit to our Malware Forum. Please follow the instructions about Posting in the Forum. Neil.

 

Believe it or not, this isn't about the malware thing was just a remarkable coincidence, really. I haven't lost my search engines since the last time I updated Firefox, something I won't do again unless they break one of my legs.
I started out trying to back up my search engines (again) 3 days ago, actually. I backed up the entire directory \Mozilla Firefox\browser, since it was the only thing that had anything in it. So I replaced all that, and date searched the entire folder, and nothing. Well I have a great program that backs up my entire registry every time I restart, so I already restored the last one of those, and that didn't do it, either.

Where else could Fifrefox put that? I checked the temporary files, too, nothing there from FF, either. So if nobody else knows where FF stores user profile data, I'll have to get a resource monitor and try that approach. I was just hoping maybe somebody knew, first.

I went through this once before, when I used IE, and found them deep in the registry. But Firefox is a tougher nut, it seems. I wonder why that is, it seems like it shouldn't be this hard to find what information Firefox is hiding.

As for the malware, that I did find in the temp directory, and moreover, I captured it's logs. I'll put that in the malware thread once I've taken it apart. It's going to be waterboarded until it tells me everything.....

 

In Firefox Browser > Tools > Options > Search > should show listing of search engines.
I still think you should get Broni to check your OS for you. Neil.

Have you tried running with addons disabled? Help > Restart with Addons disabled.

 

By far the simplest fix would be to use Windows System Restore to roll Windows back to a point in time when your computer was functioning the way you like it. System Restore allows you to undo system changes without affecting your personal files, such as e-mail, documents, or photos.

Video: Fixing a problem using System Restore​

If that doesn't help, try restoring an earlier system image or backup.