Ads are popping up on my FireFox home page
What is going on here? I have my home page set. Ads appear at the top of my home page. Why? I've checked my add on extensions and have removed in the past extensions from Better Surf. I just check through my plugins, and I disabled things like: RocketLife Secure Plug-In Layer 1.0.5.0 (This has something to do with photos, but I don't recognize it.); Shockwave Flash 12.0.0.44 (I have absolutely no idea what the heck this does. It was on Wed 5 Feb 14 that it was in my plugin list.); Unity Player 3.5.0.43544 (Gosh darn, I have absolutely no darn clue on this either.) Now I also checked the dates on the other plugins running. If the dates on the remaining eight plugins were somewhat older than the past week then I just left them alone. I figured everything was working fine before just today recently. I also reset my Firefox back to its default settings, and I reset my appearance choice. Is there anything else I need to do to stop the unwanted ads from appearing on my screen or tabs opening up unexpectedly or prompts to do something?
Chosen solution
To my friends at Firefox:
I've been working on this situation now for a couple of hours. I think I solved the problem. Here's what I did. I reviewed my plugins and extensions as described above. I found a program on my desktop called: Smart Media Converter. How it got there?--well, I don't know, so I removed it from my Add/Remove Program list. I also deleted the shortcut and removed it from the recycle bin. I clicked on the about link in an ad that appeared on the top of my home page. That led me to some information concerning how the ad got there in the first place. I discovered that a program called: Content Explorer was responsible for placed these ads on my Firefox home page. I followed instructions to remove it from my Add/Remove Program list. During the uninstall process, the uninstall program got stuck before finishing. I am guessing that when I removed Smart Media Converter from my computer that the Content Explorer uninstall program was looking for it, which may have been why it got stuck uninstalling itself. I clicked on Finish anyway. I went back to Firefox browser, and all is now fine.
By the way, I turned back on Shockwave Flash 12.0.0.44 at jscher2000's recommendation. The other two plugins describe earlier are set to never activate. I guess if I need them, I'll be notified somehow.
I hope my update helps others who may encounter this same problem. Thank you.
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Shockwave Flash is the Flash player, used on sites everywhere. The other two you probably can disable (set to "Never Activate") until you discover why you might need them.
Now... is the problem that your home page is being modified, or that a completely different page is being displayed?
Usually the extensions are the culprits for injecting additional (unwanted) content or overriding/hijacking your home page. To quickly test whether extensions are relevant, you could view your home page in Firefox's Safe Mode.
You can restart Firefox in Safe Mode using
Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
In the dialog, click "Start in Safe Mode" (not Reset)
Any difference?
Chosen Solution
To my friends at Firefox:
I've been working on this situation now for a couple of hours. I think I solved the problem. Here's what I did. I reviewed my plugins and extensions as described above. I found a program on my desktop called: Smart Media Converter. How it got there?--well, I don't know, so I removed it from my Add/Remove Program list. I also deleted the shortcut and removed it from the recycle bin. I clicked on the about link in an ad that appeared on the top of my home page. That led me to some information concerning how the ad got there in the first place. I discovered that a program called: Content Explorer was responsible for placed these ads on my Firefox home page. I followed instructions to remove it from my Add/Remove Program list. During the uninstall process, the uninstall program got stuck before finishing. I am guessing that when I removed Smart Media Converter from my computer that the Content Explorer uninstall program was looking for it, which may have been why it got stuck uninstalling itself. I clicked on Finish anyway. I went back to Firefox browser, and all is now fine.
By the way, I turned back on Shockwave Flash 12.0.0.44 at jscher2000's recommendation. The other two plugins describe earlier are set to never activate. I guess if I need them, I'll be notified somehow.
I hope my update helps others who may encounter this same problem. Thank you.