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

Buffalo wrote:
"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,

1) I don't know what the Intel plugin is supposed to do,
so I cannot compare any actual behavior to claimed behavior.

2) What happened to me, is I would download a file from the Internet
(right-click and Save As), and the download would be going along
just fine. I could see the file in my Downloads folder. The download
would get to 99%, and then just... disappear. And this all started
happening, just after that plugin got installed in Firefox.
I removed the 50MB driver package that included that plugin (a supposed
Intel driver package for Management Engine), and the problem stopped
happening. I noticed there was a plugin, and disabled it.

And then later noticed that now there were two plugins of
the same name.

I wish I knew what their game was. I mean, I can read this,
and I get nothing from it. Seems to have nothing to do with
causing a download to disappear. The download did not require
a password, there wasn't any whizzy protocol. I'm drawing
a blank on how this has anything to do with it, except they've
shoved this into the browser, and before this was there, the
browser worked.

http://ipt.intel.com/Home/How-it-works

Not being able to download any files, is a pretty serious
side effect. Imagine how happy I would have been, if this
happened just after my 6.9GB Visual Studio download had just
finished. It's a good thing the first symptoms
happened immediately, so I could correlate the driver install
with the change in behavior.

And I just disabled the plugins. I didn't waste the time
trying to find the files and remove the problem that way.

Paul

Mayayana wrote:
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.

The only difference I can see so far, between what
he has and what the rest of us see, is the report
in Adwcleaner that Findopolis is present.

*******

This is an example of a prefs.js and where the
home page is stored.

http://i57.tinypic.com/j0flhd.gif

I don't really know which is more dangerous, in terms
of adjusting stuff. Using the "about:config" doesn't have
any undo option, which is a bit of a problem. I made the
mistake once of *deleting* an entry in here, and it
was a bear to put back :-) But editing a value would
be OK, and this way is easier to find than trying to
find the prefs.js.

http://i60.tinypic.com/34nkyl5.gif

*******

The evidence I can find is, the "Findopolis" overlays advertising
material on things like Amazon or Ebay web pages. And puts
stuff on one side of the screen. Findopolis is in the
Program Files folder. There may be an entry in
"Add/Remove Programs" or "Programs and Reatures"
control panel for it, but whether removing it from
there works or not, I have my doubts. Still, it might
be worth a try. I'm surprised Adwcleaner didn't make
a fuss about removing it.

Now, would Findopolis lock the prefs.js and prevent user
adjustment ? I don't see the point, but I suppose it might.
If Adwcleaner doesn't find something inserted into prefs.js,
it's hard to understand why Findopolis would bother with
meddling with the properties of that file. The info
I could find, suggests things like "findopolisBHO.dll"
in its Program Files folder, and somehow that Browser
Helper Object has to get loaded into Firefox. So there
has to be a plugin loaded somewhere.

Paul

| The only difference I can see so far, between what
| he has and what the rest of us see, is the report
| in Adwcleaner that Findopolis is present.
|

Findopolis seems to be an ad inserting browser
extension. The picture of his home page seems
to be a Mozilla ad.

Unfortunately, there's no way for anyone to
really know what's different, since he's unwilling
or unable to follow directions to check the basics
and only reports that "nothing works". It doesn't
seem to make much sense to run a bunch of
adware hunter programs when he hasn't even
checked his settings.

|
| Now, would Findopolis lock the prefs.js and prevent user
| adjustment ? I don't see the point, but I suppose it might.
| If Adwcleaner doesn't find something inserted into prefs.js,
| it's hard to understand why Findopolis would bother with
| meddling with the properties of that file.

It would also have to be a standard setting, so besides
being unlikely it's very easy to check. Also, from a quick
check it appears that Findopolis has an uninstaller, so it
doesn't seem to be especially nasty. But it does indicate
one thing: "Mark Twain's" computer has some funky junk
running. Meanwhile he's avoiding updates to Adobe's
sleazeware, despite there being yet another critical update
for Flash just this week.

I think maybe you should start a service, with some
kind of remote desktop functionality, and get paid for
all the time you put in.


| The info
| I could find, suggests things like "findopolisBHO.dll"
| in its Program Files folder, and somehow that Browser
| Helper Object has to get loaded into Firefox. So there
| has to be a plugin loaded somewhere.
|

BHOs are for IE. Firefox would have something else.
But that looks like a wild goose chase to me. Mozilla
surely isn't paying the Findopolis people to insert a
start page ad in their own browser. The picture he
linked to is a *Firefox* start page with a Firefox ad.
I'm guessing that Mozilla is just giving him that as
his start page and he's not understanding the steps
required to change it.

I'm glad I always go with AMD.

I didn't know they had such a thing. Using a physical
computer as security base doesn't sound all that great
to me. First, online banking is not safe. Period. Second,
what if the computer is stolen? Then the thief has also
stolen the authentication system. And all that complexity
provides no help for the most common problem: stolen
credit card data, taken from merchant databases, POS
hacking hardware, or other sources. I don't expect it will
be long before the "embedded certificate" gets forged.
Forged and stolen certificates are already one of the
biggest security threats, for the simple reason that they're
trusted.

I suppose that if you really use your computer for a lot
of risky things like online banking and typing in credit
card numbers then maybe you'd want the alleged extra
protection, but if it were me I'd uninstall the whole mess.
It sounds like just one more company monitoring your
activities who have no business doing so.

"Paul" wrote in message ...

Buffalo wrote:
"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,

1) I don't know what the Intel plugin is supposed to do,
so I cannot compare any actual behavior to claimed behavior.

2) What happened to me, is I would download a file from the Internet
(right-click and Save As), and the download would be going along
just fine. I could see the file in my Downloads folder. The download
would get to 99%, and then just... disappear. And this all started
happening, just after that plugin got installed in Firefox.
I removed the 50MB driver package that included that plugin (a supposed
Intel driver package for Management Engine), and the problem stopped
happening. I noticed there was a plugin, and disabled it.

And then later noticed that now there were two plugins of
the same name.

I wish I knew what their game was. I mean, I can read this,
and I get nothing from it. Seems to have nothing to do with
causing a download to disappear. The download did not require
a password, there wasn't any whizzy protocol. I'm drawing
a blank on how this has anything to do with it, except they've
shoved this into the browser, and before this was there, the
browser worked.

http://ipt.intel.com/Home/How-it-works

Not being able to download any files, is a pretty serious
side effect. Imagine how happy I would have been, if this
happened just after my 6.9GB Visual Studio download had just
finished. It's a good thing the first symptoms
happened immediately, so I could correlate the driver install
with the change in behavior.

And I just disabled the plugins. I didn't waste the time
trying to find the files and remove the problem that way.

Paul

Thanks for all that. I am using an Intel i5 2500 cpu.
I still don't understand the whole Intel Identity Protection stuff at all.
Perhaps I will just remove it as you did.
Strange, I don't see it listed in the add-ons in IE. Hmmm!
--
Buffalo

Dear Mayayana,

The reason I didn't follow your initial advice what because
I was leery of using the config command because as Paul
explained it has no undo function and I didn't want to create
more of a problem than I already have.

I checked the "Add/Remove Programs"and "Programs and Features"
for Findopolis and found nothing.


Robert

The reason I didn't except Adobe download was because I
was afraid it was some form of Adware. It happened previously
some time ago and I got infected because it wasn't from
Adobe but some virus.

You are correct in that I don't understand the steps to
change the start page but I honestly don't see the point?
Can you please explain.

Robert

the HTML your referring to is not what I put in
but what it keeps defaulting to.

I tried to check for user.js but I see no Documents
and Settings

http://i57.tinypic.com/9upu0y.jpg

I've never used Add-on's but here's a screenshot:

http://i59.tinypic.com/21ocupc.jpg

Robert

On 3/20/2015 4:49 PM, Mark Twain wrote:


The reason I didn't except Adobe download was because I
was afraid it was some form of Adware. It happened previously
some time ago and I got infected because it wasn't from
Adobe but some virus.

You are correct in that I don't understand the steps to
change the start page but I honestly don't see the point?
Can you please explain.

Robert


Attempting to change the start page, was to
remove the low-key advertising in the middle
of the default Firefox start page.

By switching to about:blank or aboutlugins, there
is no advertising in those.

You could have other advertising present on the
computer, as it's possible Findopolis is installed.
The symptoms in that case, would be advertising
content that doesn't belong on the screen,
when visiting Ebay or Amazon.com.

You have shown no serious symptoms, and if you're
happy with the way the computer works, I see no
reason to get excited. Some of us "polish" the
computer, and "tell the computer who is boss",
and for us, there would be a few more steps we
might do. I don't really see anything there
right now, which is harming the machine at all.

Paul

Mark Twain wrote:
the HTML your referring to is not what I put in
but what it keeps defaulting to.

I tried to check for user.js but I see no Documents
and Settings

http://i57.tinypic.com/9upu0y.jpg

I've never used Add-on's but here's a screenshot:

http://i59.tinypic.com/21ocupc.jpg

Robert



On my WinXP computer, my Firefox prefs.js is in this folder:

C:\Documents and Settings\Paul\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\5cv0laep.default

The 5cv0laep part is a random value, and a different value
will be present on your machine. Each installation uses
a different random number.

On my Windows 8 machine, the path will be slightly different.

C:\Users\Paul\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Prof iles\hyi5j6cu.default

Windows 7 is like that too.

C:\Users\Paul\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Prof iles\7022xxl9.default

Once you find the file, right click and look for "Open with..."
and select Notepad. If you have no "Open with..." try "Open"
instead, then select Notepad. And you should be able to
see some text in there.

*******

If you need a file search tool, as an addition to the one
Windows gives you, you can try this. I just installed
this on the Windows 8 machine, to help me find the prefs.js :-)

https://download.mythicsoft.com/ar/8...ansack_828.exe

That link is right from the developer site, and has no adware
that I could see. 14,328,216 bytes. It will install on a
32 bit or 64 bit OS machine.

That program takes about 30 seconds to search my 500,000 file C: drive.

There is an even faster program than that, a program
which reads $MFT directly, and it could probably
do the job in 2 seconds. But I've used AgentRansack
before, so I just downloaded another copy of it.

If I'd used an un-indexed Windows search, it would
probably have taken two minutes.

Another reason for using the third-party search
programs, is the Windows one misses stuff, while
the third-party ones aren't too picky about where
they'll look. They tend to do a more complete job.

*******

With regard to your last picture, try *all* the
tabs, look at each one, and you'll start to get
an understanding of what things are in Firefox.

There are both Extensions and Plugins.

Plugins would include things like Adobe Flash or Java Runtime.

Extensions, well I don't have any on the Windows 8 machine.
If your Extensions are empty, it redirects you to the
"Get Add-ons" tab when you click the button. So I'm
guessing you probably don't have any.

On the machine I'm typing on, Firefox has the Extension
"Old Location Bar", which modifies the URL entry thing
a little bit. These are packages from independent
developers, which are delivered from a Mozilla server,
and they change the browser a bit for you. I don't
know if adware attacks by adding Extensions, or if
it prefers Plugins. They're both routes of entry.

Maybe you'll see Findopolis in there ?

HTH,
Paul

Just to make sure I'm doing it right I
tried to change the homepage again:

I first opened toolsoptions,

http://i57.tinypic.com/kbxh7o.jpg

then entered about:blank for the homepage:

http://i57.tinypic.com/f0t9hs.jpg

then I rebooted to check to see if it worked:

http://i59.tinypic.com/29xhcw6.jpg

As you see, it didn't.


Robert

"Mark Twain" wrote in message
...

Just to make sure I'm doing it right I
tried to change the homepage again:

I first opened toolsoptions,

http://i57.tinypic.com/kbxh7o.jpg

then entered about:blank for the homepage:

http://i57.tinypic.com/f0t9hs.jpg

then I rebooted to check to see if it worked:

http://i59.tinypic.com/29xhcw6.jpg

As you see, it didn't.


Robert


Try this. Quick and simple.
Open IE
type in about:blank and click on the right arrow in the URL box to go to
that page
Once there, Tools, Internet Options and click on the 'Use Current' tab and
then OK out.
Close IE and then open IE again and see if it works.

Takes all of a minute or two to try. Nothing to lose.
For FF, open it and type in about:blank in the URL line and press Enter. If
you now have a blank page,
go to Tools, Options, General Tab,make sure the selection for 'When Firefox
Starts' has 'Show My Home Page' is selected and then click on the 'Use
Current Page' tan and click OK and close out FF. Open FF again to see if it
is now working OK.
--
Buffalo

Mark Twain wrote:
Just to make sure I'm doing it right I
tried to change the homepage again:

I first opened toolsoptions,

http://i57.tinypic.com/kbxh7o.jpg

then entered about:blank for the homepage:

http://i57.tinypic.com/f0t9hs.jpg

then I rebooted to check to see if it worked:

http://i59.tinypic.com/29xhcw6.jpg

As you see, it didn't.


Robert



That's some good work on the pictures.

I can see a whole range of possibilities.

1) The file permissions are wrong on "prefs.js".
Now, this probably isn't the case, as Firefox would
complain if it couldn't save the new version of prefs.js.
The source code is peppered with checks for stuff like
that. So I cannot see that cause, as being symptom free.
Firefox should complain.

2) On every occasion this has happened, Firefox was in the
middle of installing an automatic update. Every time that
Firefox updates itself, it has an opportunity to remove
the "about:blank" and put back its default advertising page.
While this is a possibility, I really don't think you're that
unlucky. You should have been able to achieve success doing this
at least once. (Note - you don't need to reboot, just exit Firefox
and start Firefox again, if you want to test the setting held.)

3) Now, with those obvious ones out of the way, you have
quite an armada of anti-malware/anti-adware on the computer.
One of your tools, like maybe MBAE (anti-exploit) is
actively protecting prefs.js. I don't know the quirks of
this kind of software well enough, to predict which one
is doing it.

You can try opening prefs.js in a text editor, while Firefox
is not running (you've quit the program). Using Notepad,
you could attempt to set the "about:blank" thing. That's
about all I can think of right now. It would probably
take a tool like Avast, to protect such an item. All it
would take, is for them to be using a filter driver for
file systems, to stop every attempt to modify the file.
You could exit in Notepad, save, then reload the file
in Notepad and see if the changes are there or not.

If the program protecting "prefs.js" had Preference settings
to stop doing that, that would be the thing to change. There
are ways to modify the prefs.js file offline, but I don't
want to go there, as it's too much work and bother.

Paul

Hello Paul,

It's true that my computer's performance hasn't diminished
but this everyday pop-up from Mozilla is annoying and I
would prefer to have it gone.

I tried checking for the prefs.js in both accounts (Admin/User)
but again the file path ends.

http://i58.tinypic.com/2r7yg3s.jpg

http://i57.tinypic.com/1qfx40.jpg

I then downloaded and ran Agent Ransack and it
gave me this:

http://i57.tinypic.com/1qfx40.jpg

I thought it was suppose to just find the prefs.js
files. I selected repair and this is what it gave me.

http://i62.tinypic.com/2dqj5vc.jpg

I actually don't use Firefox per see, but navigate
via bookmarks side bar.

Robert

I tried entering about:blank in IE but the right arrow wasn't
highlight so didn't function, only the left arrow.

Robert