soneric84

Hi, I'm having some issues with firefox and this seemed like a good place to get some help. Okay, I've been using firefox for a few months now and it's been working fine. A few days ago, I check my bank account, go to work, come home and I try to load up firefox and it won't connect to the internet at all. I check my firewall (EZtrust Firewall) to see if it's blocking firefox and that doesn't seem to be it...but I lowered the defense setting from high to medium and suddenly it connects again...but now, it runs at an unbearably slow speed and is basically unusable. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling but it doesn't seem to do any good and whenever I do reinstall all my old settings are there as if I never deleted it. I've run like 3 different virus/ad-ware/malware scanners and that didn't do any good either. I'm pretty much at my wits end with this problem...my computer should be running better than ever because I recently got an external harddrive and freed up over 15GB of memory. I was going to reformat but I don't think I have the driver disc for my computer so I really don't know what to do. I know I could just use IE7, but firefox loaded up webpages and videos so much better. If anyone knows what could be wrong please let me know.

soneric84

Any ideas...anyone?

koala

Hi, welcome to TSF

It sounds like a corrupt Firefox. When you uninstalled and reinstalled and found you had the same problem, Firefox hadn't been completely uninstalled. This means that any corruptions in your profile, addons or themes would carry over to the new install.

There's a hidden folder that needs to be deleted to do a complete uninstall.

Make sure you backup your bookmarks before continuing. Open Windows Explorer and go to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\profile\ and copy bookmarks.html to the desktop or another folder.

First, uninstall Firefox the usual way, through Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs. Then go to Control Panel > Folder Options > View tab, click 'Show hidden files and folders' and click OK.

Go to C:\Documents and Settings\<Windows login/user name>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ and delete the Profiles folder.

Reinstall the latest Firefox (2.0.0.11) and copy the bookmarks.html file back into its folder, overwriting the new default one. Reset 'Show hidden files and folders' back to hidden. Finally, install your themes/addons one at a time, restarting Firefox after each one until you can find the problem.


EDIT: The other thing you mention, about Firefox being slow when you lower the security settings, could mean you're infected. Try the complete reinstall first and we'll look at your security settings later. You may need to post a HJT log to be analysed in the Security forum, even though you've already run some scans.

soneric84

Okay great, I'll give this a try later on when I get home from work and let you know how it goes. Thanks a lot I really appreciate it!

soneric84

Okay so I went ahead and deleted the profile folder and reinstalled firefox, but it's running so damn slow that I can't even begin to redownload anything that I had for it. I know this is probably a stupid question, but what is an HJT log? How do I do this?

koala

The HiJack This (HJT) log is a scan of your system that helps our security anaylsts find any infections. You might not be infected but it won't do any harm to get it checked out while you're waiting for more replies to this thread.

Please follow the instructions here (5 pages) and then post all the requested logs in a new thread here for the security analysts to look at. If you have any trouble running any of the scans, leave them and move onto the next.

The security forum is always busy, so please be patient and you will receive a reply as soon as possible. If you go to Thread Tools > Subscribe at the top of your new thread you will receive an email as soon as a reply is posted.

soneric84

Alright, as soon as I get some time I'll do that. Thanks so much. In the meantime, any more ideas from anyone would be much appreciated.

soneric84

For some reason in the 5 steps, I can't get that free panda scan to load up for me. I go to the page and click "scan now" but nothing happens. I turned off the popup blocker but it didn't work. I even turned off my antivirus and firewall, but still, nothing happens. So I don't know how I am going to do this log thing if that won't even work. :(

koala

I'm not trained in this area, so I'll move this thread over to the Security forum where the analysts are more likely to see it.

If you can't complete any of the scans, move onto the next and explain in your post what happened when it failed to scan.

tetonbob

Exactly as koala has stated...if you cannot perform one of the steps, make note of it in your thread in the HijackThis Log Help forum.

I have one question....are you using Firefox or Internet Explorer for the Panda scan? It requires IE.

Is your OS Windows XP, or Vista? Panda does not currently support Vista.

soneric84

Okay, I don't think that leaves me with much to do though. I'm using IE, because firefox is impossible to use at this point, in fact I deleted it because it just goes so slow that when I open it, it almost freezes the computer. Also, I am using XP. So it looks like the only steps I can follow are 3 and 5, but I have a question about 5. It says: "Download Deckard's System Scanner (DSS) to your Desktop. Note: You must be logged onto an account with administrator privileges." Does that mean I need to have a user name and password to use it?

tetonbob

It just means that your computer's account needs to have administrator privileges.

Most XP users are admins. DSS will tell you if it's not.

soneric84

Oh alright. So do I still have to start a new thread for the log when I am done? Sorry for all the dumb questions. lol

tetonbob

Hi, answering questions is why we're here.

Yes, create a new thread, in the HijackThis Log Help Forum, not here.

We only do log work in that forum.

Please be patient. If you look, there are hundreds of threads, and only a few people doing the helping.

soneric84

Hey, that's alright I understand. Thanks a lot.