Before you install FireFox WARNING

Last night I thought I'd install FireFox. I've installed it many times before on many machines without issue.

Last night I did it on this machine, and that was the start of two hours of restoring from backups and fighting malware. The FireFox installer also brought down something called WebCake, which in turn brought down something called Delta Search. It modified the config on IE and Chrome too, ground my machine to a halt, and meant that every page I tried to access on t'interweb went via this third party delta-search domain.

I thought I'd fixed it all last night, but just now I noticed more traces of it. I think its gone now, but it didn't half create a carry on. I'd therefore think carefully and do a bit of reading up to see if anyone else has issues with the latest version before installing it.

 

YES! This happened to me! Bloody pain in the hoo ha! Took me ages to sort it out. Steering clear from Mozilla software from now on.

 

Yep been there done that! Only last week too. I had to ask my OH to sort it for me. I don't really understand it all but it was difficult to get rid of Delta Search and I had another one at the same time called Babylon.

OH used Spybot and found 56 baddies and used the Norton registry cleaner too. Thankfully it's all gone. I won't try to install Firefox again!

 

I've been using firefox for years. Don't intend to leave it, but haven't noticed any problems either lately.

What should I be looking out for?

 

I've put a link to this thread in the "Recent problems ... " thread so that those members being advised to change their browser are aware there may be issues with FireFox

 

If you've been using it a while, its probably fine. I don't think FireFox has an issue. I think its just the latest installer for it that brings down a load of unpleasantness, so it will only be new installs that have the problem.

 

I must have got lucky, as I installed Firefox about a month ago after having no end of problems with IE and since then everything is 100 times faster, it rarely freezes on websites that it was before with IE. It installed quickly and without problems too

 

I was surprised to see this thread as I have used Firefox for years and their updates (its my favourite browser by far) and have done so without problem or any rubbish being downloaded with the Firefox download.

I had a little search around and there are plenty of results (an example http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/959873 which reading down indicates that the spyware WebCake and Delta Search etc. are associated with downloading Firefox from unofficial or third party download sites. I wonder if this might explain what has happened to some people on here??

In the past I have downloaded bits of various software from the likes of cnet.com and download.com tucows.com and had spyware rubbish included.

With downloads of any sort - my motto is always go to the proprietor's site for downloading then you can be sure of the pukka software.

Wonder if that might pinpoint the problem for some?

GG

 

Well I got it from here, which is where I always go for FireFox. Doesn't get any more genuine the mozilla official site.

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/

As I said, I've downloaded it and installed it on many machines many times without issue. It seems to be a very recent thing. It is possible that a dodgy version of the installer has gone up. Of course that would be dismissed as impossible by die hard FireFox people so it would never be admitted, and my guess is that in a week or two, if we download from there again, all will miraculously be fine. I checked and double checked everything before I started this thread, because I was very surprised that the download from the official site was so nasty.

 

Nope I downloaded direct from Mozilla.
And I've used it for years. Until I installed it on my new laptop and it ruined with all sorts of other software!

 

I downloaded direct from Mozilla too....I also got something called MySearchDial which I also didn't want and was a nuisance to get rid of.

 

I'm now a Chrome user!

 

Snap!

 

Same here

 

Started to answer and she crashed again. I wouldn't mind but she keeps telling me that a problem with this website is responsible for the closure of internet.