We’d like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum.
This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are – or become – political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.
📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!
Foxstart and profile hijack?
HO87
Posts: 4,296 Forumite
Earlier this afternoon I left my W7 machine whilst getting some lunch and returned to it (no, no one else had access to it during that time) to find it had frozen with a FF Flash plug-in crash page sitting at the top.
No matter what I did I couldn't recover the machine and eventually tried to start into Safe Mode and also tried to restore but the machine was having none of that and grudgingly booted it direct into W7 - that'll teach me not to keep a Live CD to hand. Surprise, surprise I have picked up some nasty or other.
The principal symptoms are that the CPU load has increased markedly and despite my best endeavours the whole FF layout has been changed with uk/foxstart.co.uk as my homepage. I seem to be unable to change that at the moment.
Of most concern is that my FF profile file name has been changed and it no longer contains the same data. The file was updated at the time of the crash but the profile.ini file which now shows thenew profile file to load shows no sign, in terms of time/date of being changed since I last synch-ed profiles. This is of particular concern as I run computers using W7, OSX and Linux and need to be able to migrate my updated profiles between them often daily and at least 3 or 4 times a week. I am not concerned that I don't have a back-up as I can simply replace it with my OSX profile copy from yesterday evening. I am more concerned that there may be something sitting lower in my system I'm not finding at present.
Nothing has been picked up thusfar using MBAM, Hijackthis or Avast! The AV found nowt not that that surprises me particularly.
Anybody come across this one before?
No matter what I did I couldn't recover the machine and eventually tried to start into Safe Mode and also tried to restore but the machine was having none of that and grudgingly booted it direct into W7 - that'll teach me not to keep a Live CD to hand. Surprise, surprise I have picked up some nasty or other.
The principal symptoms are that the CPU load has increased markedly and despite my best endeavours the whole FF layout has been changed with uk/foxstart.co.uk as my homepage. I seem to be unable to change that at the moment.
Of most concern is that my FF profile file name has been changed and it no longer contains the same data. The file was updated at the time of the crash but the profile.ini file which now shows thenew profile file to load shows no sign, in terms of time/date of being changed since I last synch-ed profiles. This is of particular concern as I run computers using W7, OSX and Linux and need to be able to migrate my updated profiles between them often daily and at least 3 or 4 times a week. I am not concerned that I don't have a back-up as I can simply replace it with my OSX profile copy from yesterday evening. I am more concerned that there may be something sitting lower in my system I'm not finding at present.
Nothing has been picked up thusfar using MBAM, Hijackthis or Avast! The AV found nowt not that that surprises me particularly.
Anybody come across this one before?
My very sincere apologies for those hoping to request off-board assistance but I am now so inundated with requests that in order to do justice to those "already in the system" I am no longer accepting PM's and am unlikely to do so for the foreseeable future (August 2016). 
For those seeking more detailed advice and guidance regarding small claims cases arising from private parking issues I recommend that you visit the Private Parking forum on PePiPoo.com
For those seeking more detailed advice and guidance regarding small claims cases arising from private parking issues I recommend that you visit the Private Parking forum on PePiPoo.com
0
Comments
-
I'd never heard of it before but it appears to be a search engine.
According to a thread on Mozilla Support you need to click on Start - Control Panel - Network and Internet - Internet Options. Delete the home page entry for Foxstart and add whatever you want for your home page. My Firefox home page is http://www.google.co.uk/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official so you can add that if it helps.
http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/702914#answer-247546
If you're still having problems you might be better off posting a Hijack This log for the experts on the Techie board to look at.0
This discussion has been closed.
Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply
Categories
- All Categories
- 352.4K Banking & Borrowing
- 253.7K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
- 454.4K Spending & Discounts
- 245.5K Work, Benefits & Business
- 601.3K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
- 177.6K Life & Family
- 259.3K Travel & Transport
- 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
- 16K Discuss & Feedback
- 37.7K Read-Only Boards