why has adblocker suddenly disappeared and my email account full of adverts?
Today suddenly first I get a blank tab when I log onto internet so I press home button and get my firefox home page. But then my search won't activate and take me to another page. I opened an account to posted a request for help and when I went to activate I discover my email account is full of advertisements and I realize that adblocker has disappeared. I have had no ads on my laptop for years until today. What's happened to my Firefox. Please help.
Chosen solution
Hi, you can try try an ad-blocker add-on like Adblock Plus, but it sounds as if you may have picked up some malware - what page is your search taking you to?
If the adblocker doesn't work, you can try these free programs to scan for malware, which work with your existing antivirus software:
- Microsoft Safety Scanner
- MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware
- Anti-Rootkit Utility - TDSSKiller
- AdwCleaner (for more info, see this alternate AdwCleaner download page)
- Hitman Pro
- ESET Online Scanner
Microsoft Security Essentials is a good permanent antivirus for Windows 7/Vista/XP if you don't already have one. Windows 8 has antivirus built-in already.
Further information can be found in the Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware article.
Note that not all removal programs will detect all malware, so you may need to run several or all of them.
After removal you may need to reset your home page and search, which you can do by running the add-on SearchReset.
Did this fix your problems? Please report back to us. Thank you!
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Chosen Solution
Hi, you can try try an ad-blocker add-on like Adblock Plus, but it sounds as if you may have picked up some malware - what page is your search taking you to?
If the adblocker doesn't work, you can try these free programs to scan for malware, which work with your existing antivirus software:
- Microsoft Safety Scanner
- MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware
- Anti-Rootkit Utility - TDSSKiller
- AdwCleaner (for more info, see this alternate AdwCleaner download page)
- Hitman Pro
- ESET Online Scanner
Microsoft Security Essentials is a good permanent antivirus for Windows 7/Vista/XP if you don't already have one. Windows 8 has antivirus built-in already.
Further information can be found in the Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware article.
Note that not all removal programs will detect all malware, so you may need to run several or all of them.
After removal you may need to reset your home page and search, which you can do by running the add-on SearchReset.
Did this fix your problems? Please report back to us. Thank you!
Thank you for your support Scribe I ran a complete scan of the laptop and it was clear. Today when I checked out About Firefox it was updating itself. Inexplicably this has resolved my problem and the ad blocker has been restored and is functioning as it was. I don't know what happened to cause the problems. When Firefox restarted just now it said it was embarrassed because of some outstanding tabs. When I clicked to close them—one was Yahoo—it started again normally. Maybe Yahoo or advertisers tried to interfere? I don't know. Thanks again for your help.
If like me, you've just upgraded (me yesterday to to v46.0) because Firefox tells you it's awfully urgent that you do so (humph!), you may find that AdBlocker has been auto-disabled (possibly other stuff too!) and you're now swimming in horrible, unwanted ads again!
It's really annoying that Firefox tells you to upgrade and doesn't warn you what's going to stop working -actually, it's also annoying *that* some useful AddOns stop working! Anyway, re. AdBlock, you could try installing AdBlockerUltimate v2.23 or possibly uBlockOrigin - I'm hoping one of them will be acceptable so I can get out of SafeMode and get something useful done again! Good Luck