Which popups are you referring to? Can you post a screenshot?

Many users seem to have gotten severe advertising infections during the past week. You could peruse these threads to see if any of them match what you're seeing and try the suggestions there, or post a more detailed description of the ads showing in your Firefox.

• Help I think Firefox has been hijacked
• firefox impacted by akamaihd virus, but no other browser
• Need help killing nasty Firefox virus / adware

Firefox 37.0 or any recent releases never had any problems with popups on any OS.

The Firefox 37.0 did have a issue with some users on Windows with crashes due to dsay Windows Blinds for example. The Firefox 37.0.1 was released to try have help fix that.

MaxwellsMom said

Could not run FireFox 37 the pop ups were just awful. I was told to stop using it till a patch was released. Trying to find out if it has been released.

I thought I had gotten the redirect virus somehow. I contacted my security company and they told me it was Firefox. That they have been overrun with calls the last two weeks with this problem and everyone is running Firefox. They suggested to stop running Firefox till a patch comes out for the repair. So I removed Firefox and have had no more trouble with all the ads. I have a friend who called a number that popped and had to have her whole hard drive reformatted. What mess this as caused a lot of people. Would like to be able to use Firefox but not sure what I need to do to be able to.

If you would like to try Firefox again, please start here:

Pre-clean Your System

Open the Windows Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs. After the list loads, click the "Installed on" column heading to group the infections, I mean, additions, by date. This can help surface innocent sounding bundle items that snuck in with some software you agreed to install. Take out as much trash as possible here.

You can search for remaining issues with the scanning/cleaning tools listed in our support article: Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware. These on-demand scanners are free and take considerable time to run. If they finish quickly and especially if they require payment, you may have a serious infection. I suggest the specialized forums listed in the article in that case.

Clean Reinstall

When you removed Firefox, it may have left some items behind in a program folder. To make sure the program files are clean, but without removing your settings, you can reinstall as follows:

(1) Download a fresh installer for Firefox 37.0.1 from https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/ to a convenient location if you have an older one. (Scroll down to your preferred language.)

(2) Exit out of Firefox (if applicable).

(3) Rename the program folder

(32-bit Windows folder names)

C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox

to

C:\Program Files\OldFirefox

(64-bit Windows folder names)

C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox

to

C:\Program Files (x86)\OldFirefox

(4) Run the installer you downloaded in #1. It should automatically connect to your existing settings (assuming those are still on your computer).

Note: Some plugins may exist only in that OldFirefox folder. If something essential is missing, look in these folders:

• \OldFirefox\Plugins
• \OldFirefox\browser\plugins

Can you get up and running ad-free?

I went through and did everything step by step and rechecked my self. Still a page full of ads. Cannot even get the home page from all the ads. What a mess.

MaxwellsMom said

I have a friend who called a number that popped and had to have her whole hard drive reformatted. What mess this as caused a lot of people.

Sounds like one of those fake popups scams where they claim they found somethings and you can pay to get it fixed. Pretty obvious scam when it tries that on a Mac or Linux user.

MaxwellsMom said

I went through and did everything step by step and rechecked my self. Still a page full of ads. Cannot even get the home page from all the ads. What a mess.

What Extensions do you have installed as there are some extensions that exist out there (not hosted at addons.mozilla.org) that do cause ads.

When I open my browser I get Ads By Name, Powered By Viso, Ads By Compare for Fun, and Ads by Portal. My Appearance is: 37.0.1. The Extensions are: Microsoft.net Frame work Assistant 0.0.0 (disabled), Norton Tool Bar 2014.7.12.7 (disabled), Realdownload 1.3.2 (disabled).

I do not get any of these pop up ads when opening Internet Explorer, or Google Chrome. I really do not care for any of these browers and would rather use Firefox. I have just been having this problem for the last few weeks and have tried everything that you have suggested so far with not resolve to the problem.

Thank you for your help so far James.

Do you mean those are your addons? If so, remove all of the "ads" addons. Also, some malicious extensions hide themselves from the addons list, so please start firefox in safe mode (hold down the shift key while opening firefox) and check your addons again.

See:

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-caused-malware

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
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-caused-malware

No they are not my add ons. I listed what they were listed under.

Can you get a clean page if you type or paste the following in the Run dialog (Start menu > run) and then press Enter or click the button:

• Built-in home page:

firefox.exe "about:home"

• Blank page:

firefox.exe "about:blank"

• Google home page

firefox.exe "https://www.google.com/"

or are those all contaminated?

All these are known Malware. Ads By Name Powered By Viso Ads By Compare for Fun Ads by Portal

cor-el posted information about how to search for and get rid of Malware in general, which show work in your situation. Or you can Google search for remove Ads By Name and the other three to search for specific removal instructions for each.

Example: http://malwaretips.com/blogs/ads-by-name-removal/

I have gone through and used all the trial versions of the software you suggested and did all the scans and still have the same problem when I open up the browser. I am not having any problems with IE or Chrome. What else can I try? Did not have any of these problems till the latest up date of Firefox.