Windows Pop up windows

[Ant1981]

I've got Firefox and pop up windows are blocked.

Has worked really well, until recently. Every so often I'm getting pop ups from Adfly etc.

What's happened? How can I stop this?

Thanks.

[ShinyAli]

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthrea...front+page+pop


Adblocker for Firefox

Adblock for Android...

Adblocker for IE...

Adblock for Chrome...

Try the search first

[sniperdude]

try downloading malwarebytes (free version) and give your pc a scan and remove anything it finds and scan it again till it finds nothing.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/

and use adblock as above

[Ant1981]

Originally Posted by ShinyAli

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthrea...front+page+pop


Adblocker for Firefox

Is that a firefox approved/developed software? Looks like it?

Originally Posted by ShinyAli

Try the search first

The forum would cease to be a forum if no one ever asked questions

[sniperdude]

Originally Posted by Ant1981

Is that a firefox approved/developed software? Looks like it?




The forum would cease to be a forum if no one ever asked questions

Yeah the fox ran past with it's thumbs up while getting chased by 15 hounds.

an this question gets posted almost everyday and the answer never changes.

[Ant1981]

Originally Posted by sniperdude

Yeah the fox ran past with it's thumbs up while getting chased by 15 hounds.

an this question gets posted almost everyday and the answer never changes.

Is this the same answer to yesterday then?

[Ant1981]

I tried the Firefox popup blocker and I'm still getting annoying 'congratulations' ones offering me crap I don't want and with audio.

I'd love to know what happened. Let someone use my pc and all hell breaks lose.

Right, is there something I can do, such as remove firefox and start again? I've cleared cookies nad history, not sure what else to do!

ta.

[sourdough]

do you have the firefox extension NoScript? this is the only thing I run and I rarely get popups.

[Ant1981]

Originally Posted by sourdough

do you have the firefox extension NoScript? this is the only thing I run and I rarely get popups.

I haven't. I'll look into that.

Just ran Malwarebytes and it didn't find a thing

[jaydeee]

In addition, I think clearing your browsing history will help.
Go to Tools >> "Clear Recent History..."

[Ant1981]

Originally Posted by jaydeee

In addition, I think clearing your browsing history will help.
Go to Tools >> "Clear Recent History..."

Yeah I did that to begin with. It made the browser run faster, but still get pop ups.

[wolfticket]

Assuming your system isn't infected with some sort of ad/malware, in which case stopping the popups will just mask the problem rather than fix it:

Adblock Plus Pop-up Addon (in addition to Adblock) should stop all popups (useful ones as well as bad) in my experience. It creates a new option in ABP. Just set it to "block all popups" rather than "handle pop-up using adblock plus". You can also setup site rules.

No-Script should more or less achieve the same thing, but I find it's whitelist approach to javascript to be an annoying level of security overkill. Your mileage may vary though; a lot of people swear by it.

[Ant1981]

Originally Posted by wolfticket

Assuming your system isn't infected with some sort of ad/malware, in which case stopping the popups will just mask the problem rather than fix it:

So what's the problem/cause?

[wolfticket]

Originally Posted by Ant1981

So what's the problem/cause?

??? to be honest.

If you've getting lots of obtrusive pop-ups on common sites that you wouldn't expect to have that sort of advertising on, even with a pop-up blocker installed, then it sounds like it could be an ad/malware infection (although I'm slightly surprised Malwarebytes didn't catch it as it is one of the best anti-malware apps).

As for cause, well, it would have been illicitly installed on your system one way or another. Usually though a misleading download/install from a browser in my experience.

And fixing the issue: Malware can be a tricky thing to remove. If Malwarebytes didn't work then you can try some other tools, but like I said Malwarebytes is one of the most effective anyway. You can also try to get help from certain forums that will look at HijackThis logfiles for you.

There really is no substitute for grabbing someone with a bit of experience in malware removal and sitting them in front of your computer though.

[Ant1981]

Do you think whatever the 'infection' is, has attached itself to firefox directly?

Would a comeplete removal of FF and it's folders etc get rid?

[wolfticket]

Originally Posted by Ant1981

Do you think whatever the 'infection' is, has attached itself to firefox directly?

Would a comeplete removal of FF and it's folders etc get rid?

Maybe, but more commonly if it is actual malware that is installed it will at least hook onto Internet Explorer as well.
You can't test pretty easily though by browsing the same sites you get popups on in FF on IE, and maybe use it as a general browser for a bit and see if you have the same sort of issues.

If you don't a full uninstall and reinstall of Firefox may help.

If it is just Firefox, then it maybe be worth trying "Help>Restart with Add-ons Disabled" to check it isn't a rogue extension inserting ads beforehand.