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Somebody has control of my browser

  • 8 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 31 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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My address line is red, and their is an icon which say: browser is under remote control, reason: DevTools.

I am not sure how to fix this, or what to do about this. I do not know if I caused this myself. Please let me know if anybody can help.

My address line is red, and their is an icon which say: browser is under remote control, reason: DevTools. I am not sure how to fix this, or what to do about this. I do not know if I caused this myself. Please let me know if anybody can help.

All Replies (8)

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I don't know how to show you a screenshot of the address bar. It just shows red across the address bar, and there is an icon. When you click on the icon, it shows a message: Browser is under remote control, reason: DevTools.

I've looked at DevTools, but I don't know what to do with it.

I have looked on the web, and seen that it may have to do with remote debugging. But I don't know what has happened that allowed it, or what to do to fix it. It doesn't show red all the time, it just comes on sometimes. I have tried restarting my computer, but that hasn't stopped it. It keeps coming back on.

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I could do a screenshot, but it is not on right now.

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Check on the about:config page whether these prefs have their default value (i.e. are not bold).

  • devtools.chrome.enabled (false)
  • devtools.debugger.prompt (true)
  • devtools.debugger.remote-enabled (false)
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All three of them were bold, and were on the opposite value. I changed all of them to what you have listed. I will have to wait and see if it works.

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The red line just comes on sometimes. I guess that means somebody is connecting to my computer remotely. Is there any way to tell where the connection is coming from?

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Could be a malware. Try to scan it with MalwareBytes or sth.

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Your System Details shows that you have a user.js file in the profile folder to initialize prefs each time Firefox starts. The user.js file will only be present if you or other software has created this file and normally won't be present.

You can check its content with a text editor (right-click: "Open with"; do not double-click). The user.js file is read each time Firefox is started and initializes preferences to the value specified in this file, so preferences set via user.js can only be changed temporarily for the current session.

You can delete the user.js file if you didn't create this file yourself.

You can use the button on the "Help -> More Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page (Root directory).

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You will have to reset prefs set via user.js on the about:config page to their default setting.