What is in the tabs / windows?

Type about:preferences#general<enter> in the address bar.

There are two settings;

• When Firefox Starts

When the browser is started, what do you want to display. Many of us choose Show My Home Page.

• Home Page

When a new page is opened, what do you want displayed.

1. Use Current Page. Use what ever page(s) are open at that time.
2. Use Bookmark
3. Restore To Default. about:home shows a Mozilla home page with tools.

You can use any of these that you wish;

about:home (Firefox default home page), about:newtab (shows the sites most visited), about:blank (a blank page),

or you can enter any web page or about: page you want.

You can check the home page setting:

• Tools > Options > General > Startup: Home page

Firefox supports multiple home pages separated by '|' (pipe) symbols.

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/How+to+set+the+home+page

When I open Firefox, it opens to the page I have set as my home page. But it ALSO opens another page. Generally this is something like searching for some kind of information I'm not interested in, or some other page that I have never visited...and one I don't want to visit.

My husband uses Firefox on his computer as well, and he has the same problem. I have checked the home page setting on both computers and there is nothing listed other than our respective home page choices.

Thanks for any help! Spellboundx2

Hi spellboundx2, does the unwanted page have an address? If so, could you post it? That may help identify the culprit.

I suspect the problem is caused by a bad add-on. Here's my suggested procedure for tracking down and cleaning up bad add-ons. I know it seems long, but it's not that bad. If you use a Mac, start with step #2:

(1) Open the Windows Control Panel, Uninstall a Program. After the list loads, click the "Installed on" column heading to group the infections, I mean, additions, by date. This can help in smoking out undisclosed bundle items that snuck in with some software you agreed to install. Be suspicious of everything you do not recognize/remember, as malware often uses important or innocent sounding names to discourage you from removing it. Take out as much trash as possible here.

(2) Open Firefox's Add-ons page using either:

• Ctrl+Shift+a (Mac: Command+Shift+a)
• "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons
• in the Windows "Run" dialog, type or paste
  firefox.exe "about:addons"

In the left column, click Plugins. Set nonessential and unrecognized plugins to "Never Activate".

In the left column, click Extensions. Then, if in doubt, disable (or Remove, if possible) unrecognized and unwanted extensions.

Often a link will appear above at least one disabled extension to restart Firefox. You can complete your work on the tab and click one of the links as the last step.

Any improvement?

(3) You can search for remaining issues with the scanning/cleaning tools listed in our support article: Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware. These on-demand scanners are free and take considerable time to run. If they finish quickly and especially if they require payment, you may have a serious infection. I suggest the specialized forums listed in the article in that case.

Success?

Hi there! Thanks for your reply! I will simply start by providing the URL from the page that opened this morning along with my home page. It isn't always this same page, however. And generally, the pages are not ones that I would visit, or click on.

Here's the URL: http://www1.gib-gib-la.com/mediahosting.engine?MediaId=31411&AId=883&CId=14931&PId=32704&SiteId=280&ZoneId=354&VolumeMetricId=ebe2a665-4f11-4516-a83e-43d74740343c&PassBackUrl=

I have not tried your solution yet, and will wait to hear what you think about this page information before I proceed. By the way, I do have McAfee security suite installed on my computer, and it is up to date.

Unfortunately, when I search around for various components of that URL I can't trace it to any particular advertiser, site, or program. Since that domain was just registered on June 1, I suspect they are changing it frequently to get through spam filters and phishing blocks and avoid getting indexed. I didn't click through to watch their video; just don't trust 'em.

It's suspicious, so please proceed with the cleanup.

jscher2000 said

Success? I'm afraid not. I followed your instructions but could find nothing that looked suspicious in my program files or the add-ons. I also followed the support article you cited but could find nothing that addressed my specific issue. I am at a loss to understand what's happening since I have a security suite up to date and running on my computer. Hopefully a solution will present itself or... preferably, the problem will disappear as fast as it appeared. :-/ I appreciate your time and help! spellboundx2

Do you want to post a list of your extensions for review? You can copy/paste from an internal support info page, as follows (either):

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
• (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
• type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

Scroll down a bit on that page to get to the Extensions table.

(The paste looks a bit messy, but we're used it...)

Do a malware check with several malware scanning programs on the Windows computer. Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware. All these programs have free versions.

Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.

• Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:
  http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
• AdwCleaner:
  http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/
  http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Removal-Tools/AdwCleaner.shtml
• SuperAntispyware:
  http://www.superantispyware.com/
• Microsoft Safety Scanner:
  http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx
• Windows Defender:
  http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/using-defender
• Spybot Search & Destroy:
  http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
• Kasperky Free Security Scan:
  http://www.kaspersky.com/security-scan

You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.

• Anti-rootkit utility TDSSKiller:
  http://support.kaspersky.com/5350?el=88446

See also:

• "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-caused-malware

jscher2000 said

Do you want to post a list of your extensions for review? You can copy/paste from an internal support info page, as follows (either):

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
• (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
• type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

Scroll down a bit on that page to get to the Extensions table. (The paste looks a bit messy, but we're used it...)

I'm not sure if I did this correctly, but here's what I THINK is the list of extensions you asked for.

ColorfulTabs 27.7 true {0545b830-f0aa-4d7e-8820-50a4629a56fe} Ghostery 5.4.5.1-signed true firefox@ghostery.com iCloud Bookmarks 1.4.14.1-signed true firefoxdav@icloud.com Image Preview 0.0.11.1-signed true {D0A81AC1-3B12-4cec-AA8D-40EBDC4241EA} McAfee WebAdvisor 4.0.0 true {4ED1F68A-5463-4931-9384-8FFF5ED91D92} Pocket 3.0.6.1-signed true isreaditlater@ideashower.com WOT 20131118.1-signed true {a0d7ccb3-214d-498b-b4aa-0e8fda9a7bf7} HP SimplePass 1.0 false firefox@bho.com

By the way, there is a different 'second page' open on Firefox just now, and here is the URL: http://www1.gib-gib-la.com/Redirect.eng?MediaSegmentId=19551&rvid=bbbf4f12-0445-4f5d-93fb-3e7a8f44c63e&vmId=18acf48d-ca32-4b6c-9ba8-4a6678c02115&abr=true&res=797x448

I looked this one up and found that it is some sort of accelerator for web pages or something like that. I don't know where it came from, or if it's something I can delete. And if so, what the consequences would be if I did. And since the second page is not always this page, I don't know if that would solve the problem anyway.

Thank you so much for all your time and help in trying to solve this problem. Spellboundx2

Run most or all of the listed malware scanners. Each works differently. If one program misses something, another may pick it up.

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