You need to be more careful on the internet, that web page is impersonating a Firefox update web page, it is a Web Forgery! The last thing you ever want to do on a fake website is to click on anything on the web page, you're lucky it didn't install something harmful.

Mozilla doesn't use web addresses (domains) like that - vkernel.org - and the website image (Favicon) is missing from the Location Bar. If it isn't a domain that includes mozilla in the address - like mozilla.com or mozilla.org - chances are it is fake and not an official Mozilla website.

I reported that page as a Web Forgery, using Help > Report Web Forgery... from the Menu Bar.

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/phishing-protection/

Also do a malware check with some malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.
You need to scan with all programs because each program detects different malware.
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.

• http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
• http://www.superantispyware.com/ - SuperAntispyware
• http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx - Microsoft Safety Scanner
• http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx - Windows Defender: Home Page
• http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Spybot Search & Destroy
• http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php - Ad-Aware Free

See also:

• "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked

Thanks for help and solutions. I am careful and only go to my favorites which are the same for years. So glad to have such knowledgeable people and kind people willing to help. Blessings to all.

spirited_butterfly

Foolishly, I downloaded the update without thinking first, and my machine kept freezing up. I finally said to hell with it, but I had an inkling of a thought and pulled up my Avast anti-virus program, went to maintenance, clicked on the virus chest, and lo and behold!

_d9uxO0z.exe.part Win32: Malware-gen eNsFlIxn.exe.part Win32: Malware-gen update.exe Win32: Malware-gen

I like the virus chest feature on Avast, although I wish there was an option to delete the malicious programs or better yet, a feature that boomerangs viruses and the like right back to the senders own system!

This is a new problem that has come up recently, I think we're seeing the beginnings of a new malware strategy. Problem is, how are the redirects happening in the first place?? We need to find out, before this gets out of hand.

If there are no known browser hijacking viruses doing this, then is it possible the DNS servers themselves have been hijacked?