When I open Firefox, I receive the following - The proxy moz-proxy://hk-001.windscribe.com:443 is requesting a username and password. The site says: “Windscribe
I recently downloaded and installed Windscribe VPN software on my PC. However, after encountering a few issues with it, I uninstalled it. I now find that each time I open Firefox I received the above message. Whether I enter the user name and password or not, I can go no further and am unable to use Firefox. I have uninstalled and re-installed Firefox but that made no difference. It also will not allow me to do a screen dump of the message and the photo I took of it does not upload. Is anyone able to help resolve this issue? I have been using Firefox for a few years now and have been very happy with it and would prefer to be able to continue to use it.
Chosen solution
Hi, it's still showing up as installed on Firefox - albeit disabled - Name: Windscribe Version: 0.1.43 Enabled: false ID: @windscribeff So try starting FF in Safe Mode by holding down Shift when you start it, then remove it from your extensions - Add-ons Manager (Ctrl+Shift+A) > Extensions.
You can also check your Firefox Desktop shortcut for corruption: Right click on it > Properties, and in Target, make sure there is no sign of the malware. If there is, delete that part of it. Or if it's easier, you can just delete it and recreate a new shortcut. More: Wrong home page opens when I start Firefox - How to fix.
Also check your proxy setting in Options (3-bar menu), and go to the Network tab as shown in Advanced panel - Accessibility, browsing, network, updates, and other advanced settings in Firefox.
Another thing you can do, is to search for it in your PC's search box.
If you are sure it is removed from your PC, you can try 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.
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Chosen Solution
Hi, it's still showing up as installed on Firefox - albeit disabled - Name: Windscribe Version: 0.1.43 Enabled: false ID: @windscribeff So try starting FF in Safe Mode by holding down Shift when you start it, then remove it from your extensions - Add-ons Manager (Ctrl+Shift+A) > Extensions.
You can also check your Firefox Desktop shortcut for corruption: Right click on it > Properties, and in Target, make sure there is no sign of the malware. If there is, delete that part of it. Or if it's easier, you can just delete it and recreate a new shortcut. More: Wrong home page opens when I start Firefox - How to fix.
Also check your proxy setting in Options (3-bar menu), and go to the Network tab as shown in Advanced panel - Accessibility, browsing, network, updates, and other advanced settings in Firefox.
Another thing you can do, is to search for it in your PC's search box.
If you are sure it is removed from your PC, you can try 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.
Thank you Scribe. I logged into FF in Safe mode and changed the home page. This seemed to resolve the issue. However, I went through all the other fixes you listed but found no further listing of Windscribe so it appears to have been fully deleted. Thanks again for you assistance. Much appreciated.