Firefox 5 update complete mess

pickledtink

As prompted I upgraded to FF 5. It disabled Avast so no virus protection. I managed to get avast reinstalled through safe mode and it seems to be working again but firefox constantly crashes and freezes. At present it's completely useless. Checked add ons and found avast, realplayer, skype , Microsoft net framework all showing as disabled . Have been to Firefox site and forums and the upshot seems to be that we are stuck with this. Cannot go back to the previous version as far as I can find.
Now using internet explorer for the first time in years and thinking of simply uninstalling firefox.
I have come across a mass of confusing advice but am reluctant to download various extra programmes to try this that and the other as my system seems so unstable now anyway.
Have windows XP.
There seems to be quite an outcry all over the web about problems with FF 5 and no real answers as it all depends which particular addons people have or not.

Does anyone have any simple sensible knowledge and advice on this before I go nuts?

penrhyn

Uninstall it.

You can still find Firefox 3 archive online, download and install, use whilst they sort out FF5.

RussJK

How can Firefox 5 disable Avast? That doesn't make sense. Are you sure it wasn't a fake update?

Try this from the Avast forum:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=80401.msg658814#msg658814

pickledtink

penrhyn wrote: »

Uninstall it.

You can still find Firefox 3 archive online, download and install, use whilst they sort out FF5.

Thanks. I'll look for it. It's so dodgy now as there seem to be endless fake copy downloads which are actually spyware, viruses or trojans.

pickledtink

RussJK wrote: »

How can Firefox 5 disable Avast? That doesn't make sense. Are you sure it wasn't a fake update?

Try this from the Avast forum:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=80401.msg658814#msg658814

I'll take a look at that. I'm not sure it wasn't a fake. It looks kosher and there are plenty of complaints including on the genuine Mozilla site which basically just tells people it's the fault of Avast etc for not updating in time! There are some really clever mimics like the MS virus removal tool which hijacks your system so this is becoming a minefield..

pickledtink

RussJK wrote: »

How can Firefox 5 disable Avast? That doesn't make sense. Are you sure it wasn't a fake update?

Try this from the Avast forum:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=80401.msg658814#msg658814

Well that took me back to square one. I'd already found and tried this but did it again. It was STOPPED AND ERROR /WARNING message said it was 'spawning' ???!!!
I'll try getting back to FF3 but really don't know which download source to trust now. Anyone have a positive trusted source they can point me at please?

RussJK

Latest Firefox 3.6
http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.6.18&os=win&lang=en-GB

fwor

Mozilla still support 3.6 - you can get that here:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html

I've been using FF5 for a while now and had no major problems.

davester

i had no problems updating to FF5 with Avast running

pickledtink

RussJK wrote: »

Latest Firefox 3.6
http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.6.18&os=win&lang=en-GB

Thanks. I'd already done it but FF still crashing and lots of other problems with freezing, sloooow and IE crashed too. Avast upgrade failed but seemed to be ok when I did it manually Something else going on here. Avast and Malware found nothing. Spybot picked up a handful of things which didn't seem to be anything major.
A lot of weird things happening. Icons I'd moved from desktop to folders back where they were. Unable to open anything at all including START to even shut down.
IE threw up a crashed and close window when I hadn't even activated it.
Something I've never heard of called DR Watson Postmortem De!!!!!! did the same.
I've obviously got something nasty but cannot find it. Scrutinising the task manager isn't showing up anything unusual either.
I don't know what to try next but this all started when I uploaded FF 5.
I know all this installing and uninstalling is bad news for the system too.
Also trying to system restore to previous point is refused over and over. It's as if it's been wiped.
I'm now out of my depth so probably just going to make it worse.
Can anybody help?

pickledtink

Oh boy. It looks very much like I have this trojan which has an 86% severity rating.

AceBot properties:
• Allows remote user connection
• Takes and sends out screenshots of user activity
• Sends out logs by FTP or email
• Logs keystrokes
• Connects itself to the [COLOR=blue ! important][FONT=inherit ! important][COLOR=blue ! important][FONT=inherit ! important]internet[/FONT][/FONT][/COLOR][/COLOR]
• Hides from the user
• Stays resident in background

don't understand why Malware has not picked it up but apparantly it disables virus scanners and security programmes....