O.T. - How can I delete Firefox add-on

I have a Dell XPS 8500, with Windows 7 Professional, SP1,
with Spywareblaster, Avast, Windows Defender and Windows
firewall.

(1) TB HD
Intel (R) Core (TM) i7-33-3770 CPU @ 3.40 GHz 3.40 GHz
Ram 12.0 GB
System type : 64-bit operating system



Recently, Firefox had a newer version
available to download but ever since
I get this message (lower right).

http://i58.tinypic.com/2624coj.jpg

and when I open it this is what it gives me:

http://i61.tinypic.com/2eaq8sm.jpg

Is there some way to make this go away?

Thanks,
Robert

Enabling crash report and health report are just ways
for Mozilla to track you. See here for details about
stopping uninvited Mozilla spying:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb...ng-connections

For the ad, you might try setting the homepage
to a blank page in Options - Tools - General
tab. If you still get an ad with what's supposed
to be a blank page then create a simple
webpage, store it on your computer, load it
in Firefox, then open Options and set that page
as your homepage.
If you want the page blank you can just enter
the following in Notepad and save it as a .html
file:

HTMLHEAD/HEADBODY/BODY/HTML

Mayayana wrote:
Enabling crash report and health report are just ways
for Mozilla to track you. See here for details about
stopping uninvited Mozilla spying:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb...ng-connections

For the ad, you might try setting the homepage
to a blank page in Options - Tools - General
tab. If you still get an ad with what's supposed
to be a blank page then create a simple
webpage, store it on your computer, load it
in Firefox, then open Options and set that page
as your homepage.
If you want the page blank you can just enter
the following in Notepad and save it as a .html
file:

HTMLHEAD/HEADBODY/BODY/HTML

And to make it easier to find stuff in Firefox, position
the mouse to the side of the line of tabs, right-click
that open area, and a menu will come up. Inside that
menu, tick "menu bar" and release right-mouse.

That will gives the regular menu items, including
giving a place to find Tools : Options. Just in case
you can't figure out how to do it with those
icons. Once you get into the preferences, changing
the opening page to something like

about:blank

or perhaps to

aboutlugins

so you won't see an advertisement from the default Firefox
start page.

*******

One of the things the Firefox data gathering does, is
detect excessive memory usage by each version of Firefox.
At one time, Firefox had almost runaway memory usage,
and the telemetry tells them whether the problem
has come back or not. That's not Crash reporting, and
is just telemetry from regular sessions. As long as
some users leave that turned on, they get a bit of
telemetry.

Paul

| And to make it easier to find stuff in Firefox, position
| the mouse to the side of the line of tabs, right-click
| that open area, and a menu will come up. Inside that
| menu, tick "menu bar" and release right-mouse.
|

Woops. Putting back the menu (and getting rid of
any tabs) is usually the first thing I do with the newer
programs that default to the "minimalist fad" UI, so I
forgot that one may need to *find* the menu before
opening it.

| about:blank
|

I actually typed that first, but then changed it.
Isn't about:blank in Firefox an ad page these days?

Mayayana wrote:
| And to make it easier to find stuff in Firefox, position
| the mouse to the side of the line of tabs, right-click
| that open area, and a menu will come up. Inside that
| menu, tick "menu bar" and release right-mouse.
|

Woops. Putting back the menu (and getting rid of
any tabs) is usually the first thing I do with the newer
programs that default to the "minimalist fad" UI, so I
forgot that one may need to *find* the menu before
opening it.

| about:blank
|

I actually typed that first, but then changed it.
Isn't about:blank in Firefox an ad page these days?

The about:blank is still an absolutely blank page.

Whereas the Firefox default page (as shipped), has the
low-key advertising.

One reason I like aboutlugins, is to see if anything
funny has shown up since the last time. Some Intel
"Identity Protection" plugin, is listed twice in
Firefox, and I'm pretty sure I uninstalled that
package. And the plugin stayed put. I'm waiting
to see if a third one shows up. They're both disabled
as well (as that plugin has a pretty serious
side effect).

Paul

Mayayana wrote:
And to make it easier to find stuff in Firefox, position
the mouse to the side of the line of tabs, right-click
that open area, and a menu will come up. Inside that
menu, tick "menu bar" and release right-mouse.


Woops. Putting back the menu (and getting rid of
any tabs) is usually the first thing I do with the newer
programs that default to the "minimalist fad" UI, so I
forgot that one may need to *find* the menu before
opening it.

about:blank


I actually typed that first, but then changed it.
Isn't about:blank in Firefox an ad page these days?

I'll just add to this that anybody who isn't crazy about the new minimalist
fad UI ("Australis") can add the Classic Theme Restorer add-on to Firefox,
to tweak it back.

The change to the new minimalist (closer to Chrome like) look occurred with
versions 29 and later.

| I'll just add to this that anybody who isn't crazy about the new
minimalist
| fad UI ("Australis") can add the Classic Theme Restorer add-on to Firefox,
| to tweak it back.
|
| The change to the new minimalist (closer to Chrome like) look occurred
with
| versions 29 and later.
|

Unfortunately they keep moving further in the
direction of leaving no choice. Browsing as a
service. I currently have 4 Firefox extensions
that are only to restore things the Mozilla people
removed without leaving an option. And I'm
only using v. 24 (which must be almost a month
old by now . I guess if I had the current version,
which I think is 36 as of this afternoon, I'd
probably need 3 more extensions. It's at least
doable for techy people who don't mind taking
the time, but it's got to the point now that
virtually everyone else is stuck with tabs, no menu,
no ability to turn off script, no status bar data,
no ability to stop 3rd-party cookies, and so on.
All of those options have been carefully hidden.
And those of us who can choose are dependent
on the generosity of a small army of Firefox
fixers.

On Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 8:57:31 AM UTC-7, Paul wrote:
Mayayana wrote:
| And to make it easier to find stuff in Firefox, position
| the mouse to the side of the line of tabs, right-click
| that open area, and a menu will come up. Inside that
| menu, tick "menu bar" and release right-mouse.
|

Woops. Putting back the menu (and getting rid of
any tabs) is usually the first thing I do with the newer
programs that default to the "minimalist fad" UI, so I
forgot that one may need to *find* the menu before
opening it.

| about:blank
|

I actually typed that first, but then changed it.
Isn't about:blank in Firefox an ad page these days?

The about:blank is still an absolutely blank page.

Whereas the Firefox default page (as shipped), has the
low-key advertising.

One reason I like aboutlugins, is to see if anything
funny has shown up since the last time. Some Intel
"Identity Protection" plugin, is listed twice in
Firefox, and I'm pretty sure I uninstalled that
package. And the plugin stayed put. I'm waiting
to see if a third one shows up. They're both disabled
as well (as that plugin has a pretty serious
side effect).

Paul




Hello Paul,

This is what I've done,

I tried to set the homepage to blank, I then
tried inserting about:blank then aboutlugin,
I also tried saving the text in Notepad but
it only will save as text and doesn't give
the option for saving as html.

Nothing works and it keeps coming back,...

I thought Firefox was a good choice for a browser
but maybe not?

Thoughts/suggestions?

Robert

On 2015-03-18, Mark Twain wrote:
On Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 8:57:31 AM UTC-7, Paul wrote:
Mayayana wrote:
| And to make it easier to find stuff in Firefox, position
| the mouse to the side of the line of tabs, right-click
| that open area, and a menu will come up. Inside that
| menu, tick "menu bar" and release right-mouse.
|

Woops. Putting back the menu (and getting rid of
any tabs) is usually the first thing I do with the newer
programs that default to the "minimalist fad" UI, so I
forgot that one may need to *find* the menu before
opening it.

| about:blank
|

I actually typed that first, but then changed it.
Isn't about:blank in Firefox an ad page these days?

The about:blank is still an absolutely blank page.

Whereas the Firefox default page (as shipped), has the
low-key advertising.

One reason I like aboutlugins, is to see if anything
funny has shown up since the last time. Some Intel
"Identity Protection" plugin, is listed twice in
Firefox, and I'm pretty sure I uninstalled that
package. And the plugin stayed put. I'm waiting
to see if a third one shows up. They're both disabled
as well (as that plugin has a pretty serious
side effect).

Paul




Hello Paul,

This is what I've done,

I tried to set the homepage to blank, I then
tried inserting about:blank then aboutlugin,
I also tried saving the text in Notepad but
it only will save as text and doesn't give
the option for saving as html.

Then save as text, and rename the file to give
it the .html extension instead of .txt,
or choose save as, change format from save as
text to save as "all files" and you can save it
with a .htm or .html extension.

RR

Mark Twain wrote:
On Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 8:57:31 AM UTC-7, Paul wrote:
Mayayana wrote:
| And to make it easier to find stuff in Firefox, position
| the mouse to the side of the line of tabs, right-click
| that open area, and a menu will come up. Inside that
| menu, tick "menu bar" and release right-mouse.
|

Woops. Putting back the menu (and getting rid of
any tabs) is usually the first thing I do with the newer
programs that default to the "minimalist fad" UI, so I
forgot that one may need to *find* the menu before
opening it.

| about:blank
|

I actually typed that first, but then changed it.
Isn't about:blank in Firefox an ad page these days?
The about:blank is still an absolutely blank page.

Whereas the Firefox default page (as shipped), has the
low-key advertising.

One reason I like aboutlugins, is to see if anything
funny has shown up since the last time. Some Intel
"Identity Protection" plugin, is listed twice in
Firefox, and I'm pretty sure I uninstalled that
package. And the plugin stayed put. I'm waiting
to see if a third one shows up. They're both disabled
as well (as that plugin has a pretty serious
side effect).

Paul

Hello Paul,

This is what I've done,

I tried to set the homepage to blank, I then
tried inserting about:blank then aboutlugin,
I also tried saving the text in Notepad but
it only will save as text and doesn't give
the option for saving as html.

Nothing works and it keeps coming back,...

I thought Firefox was a good choice for a browser
but maybe not?

Thoughts/suggestions?

Robert

It sounds like you have more than the normal problems.

First off, here is how I change my home page, the
page that appears when you first run Firefox.

http://i57.tinypic.com/2cqh2rr.gif

If you're seeing more than a blank page after
doing that, then something has hijacked your settings.

A program like adwcleaner should be able to spot a
change to prefs.js, if that's how some unwanted
change got in.

If you're seeing problems, it's likely an adware.

To be sure, please screenshot the thing when misbehaving
and share with us.

Paul

Hello Paul,

I followed the instructions exactly as described by your link.

Other than not being able to get rid of this thing I don't notice
any problems.

If you think it best, could you give me a link to Adware Cleaner since
as you know I've had bad luck in recognizing which is legitimate
download whats whats not.

In the meantime I'll run all the scans and see if they pick up
anything.

Thanks,
Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
Hello Paul,

I followed the instructions exactly as described by your link.

Other than not being able to get rid of this thing I don't notice
any problems.

If you think it best, could you give me a link to Adware Cleaner since
as you know I've had bad luck in recognizing which is legitimate
download whats whats not.

In the meantime I'll run all the scans and see if they pick up
anything.

Thanks,
Robert

As soon as you click this link, ADWCleaner should start to download.
The file dialog should appear in a few seconds, for "Save As".

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/down...leaner/dl/125/

And this is the page with the details.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/

Last Updated: 03/09/15 02:20:01 PM EDT
File Size: 2.07 MBs

Run the "scan" before "Cleaning" anything, as your first step.
Sometimes an adware puts something in prefs.js.

Paul

You said that you tried to change the homepage
but it didn't stick. Are you sure you did it properly?
And what about the HTML file? And you didn't say
where you downloaded from, but your initial post
sounded like you got it from Mozilla.

The ad seems to be from Mozilla, which doesn't
suggest 3rd-party adware. And there are only so
many ways to set the homepage. If you've tried
doing it in the settings, you can check 2 other things:

1) Make sure there is no file user.js in the profile folder
where prefs.js is.

C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application
Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles


2) Type about:config into the address bar and hit Enter.
If you get a security warning just dismiss it as necessary.
Then type homepage in the search field. You'll find that
there are a few items there. The actual homepage URL
is browser.startup.homepage. You can set that to a URL
or to a file, like so:

file:///C:/blankpage.html

There's also startup.homepage_override_url which
should be blank.

You can also set startup.homepage_welcome_url before
going online if you don't want Firefox calling home with
each install. Also look for any other homepage entries
that might look relevant.

If you do those two things (check for user.js and adjust
about:config) I don't know of any other way that FF can
load an unwanted homepage. If it still shows up I would
expect it must be some kind of add-on, which you can
check in Tools - Add-ons.

"Paul" wrote in message ...

Mayayana wrote:
| And to make it easier to find stuff in Firefox, position
| the mouse to the side of the line of tabs, right-click
| that open area, and a menu will come up. Inside that
| menu, tick "menu bar" and release right-mouse.
|

Woops. Putting back the menu (and getting rid of
any tabs) is usually the first thing I do with the newer
programs that default to the "minimalist fad" UI, so I
forgot that one may need to *find* the menu before
opening it.

| about:blank
|

I actually typed that first, but then changed it.
Isn't about:blank in Firefox an ad page these days?

The about:blank is still an absolutely blank page.

Whereas the Firefox default page (as shipped), has the
low-key advertising.



One reason I like aboutlugins, is to see if anything
funny has shown up since the last time.
Some Intel "Identity Protection" plugin, is listed twice in
Firefox, and I'm pretty sure I uninstalled that
package. And the plugin stayed put. I'm waiting
to see if a third one shows up. They're both disabled
as well (as that plugin has a pretty serious
side effect).



Paul
Paul, I am running Win7 SP1 HP 64bit on my home desktop computer
(non-business) and run though a comcast router, hardwired.
Should I uninstall the two Intel Identity Protections plug-ins (one is
update, I believe) or not?

Do they cause some problems as you seem to indicate in you post above? You
said "as that plugin has a pretty serious side effect".
An info on what side effect it causes?
Thanks,
--
Buffalo

Hello Paul,


Here's what I've done; I ran all the scans
yesterday and they found nothing. I also had
a pop-up to upgrade Adobe which I promptly
closed. Then today I had this:

http://i62.tinypic.com/dvoec0.jpg

and I selected remind me later.

I ran the Adware program and it gave me this:

http://i57.tinypic.com/10z7r43.jpg

and then I selected clean. It said that it
would generate a logfile after the scan but
nothing came up. So I ran Adware again and
then selected logfile instead of clean and
this is what it gave me:

http://i59.tinypic.com/2dtd2zm.jpg

@Mayayana, Bill in Co, Rasta Robert - I appreciate
all the good advice. I'm not disregarding your
posts, I read them all.

However, Paul knows me and has helped me before on
numerous occasions and its much easier for me
being disabled to deal with one person than trying
to answer all the questions.

Robert