Since 10/18/15, Mozilla won't start. Tries to open as "www.o.com"?
I cannot use Firefox because, even after uninstallation and reinstallation, when I try to launch it, it tries to open a site called "www.o.com", which does not exist, instead of opening the Mozilla web browser. Firefox updated 10/18/15 and the problem has happened since then. Previously I regularly used Firefox and I have not changed any settings on my Dell Windows 7 machine.
Wšykne wótegrona (2)
Could you check whether your home page setting has become corrupted? This article has the steps: Startup, home page, tabs, and download settings.
If that looks normal, and the problem occurs every time you use your Firefox desktop shortcut (or pinned taskbar icon), check for a possible hijacked shortcut as follows:
- Desktop shortcut: right-click the icon, choose Properties
- Pinned taskbar icon: right-click the icon, right-click Mozilla Firefox, choose Properties
Windows normally will select the Shortcut tab. If not, go ahead and click the Shortcut tab.
The Target line should not have anything after this part:
- 64-bit Windows, standard 32-bit Firefox: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"
- 64-bit Windows, test 64-bit Firefox: "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"
- 32-bit Windows: "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"
If any URLs are listed after that, clear them out and save your change. To test, you can either:
- Desktop shortcut: double-click the icon to launch a new window
- Pinned taskbar icon: right-click the icon, click Mozilla Firefox to launch a new window
If you only get your home page, it worked. You probably need to do the same for your other browsers.
Do a malware check with several malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.
Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware. All these programs have free versions.
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.
- Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - AdwCleaner:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Removal-Tools/AdwCleaner.shtml - SuperAntispyware:
http://www.superantispyware.com/ - Microsoft Safety Scanner:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx - Windows Defender:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/using-defender - Spybot Search & Destroy:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Kasperky Free Security Scan:
http://www.kaspersky.com/security-scan
You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.
- Anti-rootkit utility TDSSKiller:
http://support.kaspersky.com/5350?el=88446
See also:
- "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked