Help Me! Possessed Firefox
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You gotta keep in mind not everyone here is new to computers. Some of us here are very knowledgeable with them or at least know enough to point you in the right direction.
I'm not a computer guru but I know what you describe is extremely likely to be adware. Adware may not always be anything malicious on its own but its annoying as hell, they'll do stuff from giving you random advertisement popups to hijacking your browser(s) and directing them to random web pages.
I understand your hesitation to download free stuff, but not everything on the internet is shady. For example there's some very popularly used and credible antivirus and anti-malware programs out there that have official free versions.
For example, I've been using AVG's free antivirus software since I could remember. It may not be the best thing out there but it has helped keep me from getting some nasty stuff and has helped remove some nasty stuff I've gotten over the years.
However, keep in mind if you do download something there are non-official websites out there that take legitimate and safe programs and repackage them with adware or malware. This is a common thing with popularly used programs, they'll then try to advertise it as the real "official" thing to get you to download it. It's a pretty common thing so always make sure to try to download from the official website of what ever it is your downloading. Don't go to third party websites for downloads for that stuff.
One way to find the link to official websites if you don't know them is to look up the wikipedia article on what ever program it is, they usually have links to the official website itself where you can download it.
Malware can open up your entire browser, not just tabs. Malware can also be designed to do all sorts of other stuff like download more adware programs, randomly redirect you from web pages to random advertisement websites, etc.
As the others suggest you should pick up some free trusted program to scan your computer for anything bad. I guarantee you the firefox support thread will give you the same answers.
Dude, Desktop Support is currently my job. 95% sure you have Adware/Spyware. It often gets passed Anti-Virus because in is not a virus, it is what is known as a PUP (potentially unwanted program). I would suggest like Meowcenary and Zebra, and others have suggested (btw Zebra didn't mention it, but he is IT as well) you need to scan with Malwarebytes and Spybot S&D.
In fact, I recently had a case where our Firewall detected a user potentially had spyware. We use Symantec for AV- and the Symantec scanning tool, didn't pick it up. I only found it after running Malwarebytes on the machine.
In fact, I recently had a case where our Firewall detected a user potentially had spyware. We use Symantec for AV- and the Symantec scanning tool, didn't pick it up. I only found it after running Malwarebytes on the machine.
185db
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Alright, thank you. I apologize KillerZebra, I did not realize you worked in the area. I should have not responded the way I did anyways. I will definitely try Malwarebytes and move on to the other programs if it does not fix it.
By the way, re-installing did not work
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I'm sorry, but what? You did? Are you shitting me? Do a quick Google search and you find that McAfee is shit. John McAfee himself admits its shit. You paid for poop. You paid for a thing that might as well be a virus.
YOU PAID FOR AIR.
185db
Epic Skial Regular
