Firefox got hijacked and now I cannot open the browser
It all started after I clicked on a web link via Google search to download a software but that has been costly for me now. It has hijacked Firefox and every time I open firefox, it always opened the following link automatically as my homepage. My home page is set to Google but not the following link. I tried to change my home page to blank. But every time I open firefox, the link automatically opens up.
I decided to quickly scan my computer for malware. I used Avast antivirus free which showed no Infection. I also scanned my computer with Malwarebytes Antimalware and it showed the following two infections. After that I quarantined the following.
PUP.Optional.FFHijacker on location C:\program files\Mozilla Firefox\924227.cfg
I was afraid that the browser hijacking may cause privacy problems for me. Therefore I uninstalled Firefox and then re-installed it again. But this did not solve the problem. Now every time i click on Firefox icon, it displays the following message:
FAILED TO READ THE CONFIGURATION FILE. PLEASE CONTACT YOUR SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR.
I am sad that I am unable to use my favorite browser now. Can anyone help please?
Failed to read the configuration file. Please contact your system administrator.
Всички отговори (3)
Hello, nepal1.
Certain Firefox problems can be solved by performing a Clean reinstall. This means you remove your Firefox program files and then reinstall Firefox. This process does not remove your Firefox profile data (such as bookmarks and passwords), since that information is stored in a different location.
To do a clean reinstall of Firefox, please follow these steps: Note: You might want to print these steps or view them in another browser.
- Download the latest Desktop version of Firefox from mozilla.org (or choose the download for your operating system and language from this page) and save the setup file to your computer.
- After the download finishes, close all Firefox windows (or open the Firefox menu
and click the close button 
).
- Delete the Firefox installation folder, which is located in one of these locations, by default:
- Windows:
- C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox
- Mac: Delete Firefox from the Applications folder.
- Linux: If you installed Firefox with the distro-based package manager, you should use the same way to uninstall it - see Install Firefox on Linux. If you downloaded and installed the binary package from the Firefox download page, simply remove the folder firefox in your home directory.
- Windows:
- Now, go ahead and reinstall Firefox:
- Double-click the downloaded installation file and go through the steps of the installation wizard.
- Once the wizard is finished, choose to directly open Firefox after clicking the Finish button.
More information about reinstalling Firefox can be found here.
WARNING: Do not use a third party uninstaller as part of this process. Doing so could permanently delete your Firefox profile data, including but not limited to, extensions, cache, cookies, bookmarks, personal settings and saved passwords. These cannot be easily recovered unless they have been backed up to an external device! See Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles.
Please report back to say if this helped you!
Thank you.
I agree with the above suggestion in case there are multiple points of infection.
If you want to try something more limited, please look for a file named local-settings.js here:
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\pref
If Firefox is looking for a .cfg file, (usually) it would be directed to do that by a local-settings.js file in that folder.
It would be nice if Malwarebytes handled both of these files at once instead of leaving Firefox broken...
Променено на от jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
Note that only a channel-prefs.js file that sets the update channel should be present in the defaults\pref folder in the Firefox program folder. Any other .js files in this folder are suspicious and you can examine this file in a text editor (right-click: "Open with").