FireFox hijacked by Bing?!

[DJofSD]

I started my PC this AM and when I launched my browser of choice, FireFox, I only had one tab and it was set to Bing. I normally have 8 tabs with various sites setup as my expected configuration but somehow all of that was lost.

WTF?

I don't use Bing. I did not change anything with my browser and everything appeared to be normal when I shut down my apps and PC last night.

Any one else have this happen to them?

[horses4courses]

http://images.starpulse.com/pictures/2013/03/19/thumbs/Bing%20Crosby-20130319-35.jpg

Always looked like such a pleasant fellow, too.
Goes to show that you never can tell......

[DJofSD]

... then I guess he's one of those monkeys:

A new kind of jumped-up slippery fish
And all the monkeys aren't in the zoo
Every day you meet quite a few
So, you see it's all up to you
You can be better than you are
You could be swingin' on a star

[barn32]

You must have clicked on something somewhere to change things.

Bring up FireFox, click on tools, options, general, and under "use current pages," what do you see?

If you see your normal eight tabs, then click on use current pages and you should be good to go. If you see just one tab there--Bing--then somehow all of your favorites got erased.

You can try putting them up again and then save them as your current pages.

Also make sure you don't have a Bing tool bar.

If none of this helps go to this size MozillaZine (http://forums.mozillazine.org/index.php?sid=7c8bdcd8342e5e44a8b4552fc2d424e2) and post your problem there. They've always been helpful for me.

[Dave Schwartz]

My guess:

You updated SOMETHING that took over your default search properties.


My Solution:

In Chrome, there is a place to simply shut off Bing search, AVG toolbar, etc. (In extensions.) My guess would be that there is something like that in FF somewhere.

If not, there will be in about 24 hours.

[FantasticDan]

My guess: You updated SOMETHING that took over your default search properties.A couple days ago I got a rush of unusual Windows updates, and there was a lot of Bing crap mixed in with them. I deleted the updates before they installed, but if you have your updates set to full automatic, this could be what happened..

[DJofSD]

Thanks for the suggestions and feedback.

In random order:

I should have been more descriptive initially. When I started FF this AM, it launched with a single tab on what I thought was the bing.com search site. I did look at the FF options page, and, all of expected home pages were not there, so, whatever altered my system/FF changed it via the FF options.

All of my Windows computers are configured to only download updates but let me decide when to install them.

I checked the FF search engine configuration -- bing is not there.

Checked my add ons and found a few out of date, brought those current but I don't believe any are malicious or suspect.

Brought up the bing.com page and it was not what I saw earlier this AM. Hmmm.

The PC was rebooted with everything starting as expected, and, since I did a manual reconfiguration of the browser tabs and home pages, when FF was started after the reboot, it was in the expected configuration.

Since I do not save history, I guess I'll never really know what might have happened.

I spent a few hours yesterday afternoon/evening dicking around with my router, mostly configuring some port forwarding settings along with some changes and testing on a different PC. If the laptop had problems with the browser or some other quirk, no problem, I'd chalk it up to something I had done but for the problem I saw this AM on my main desktop PC, I did nothing overt which I could look back on and think, hmmm, must have been something I did wrong or inadvertently.

As my son is fond of saying, oh well.

BTW, I did notice something for the first time in FF. Under the Help menu item, they now have a health report. (I'm tempted to make a political joke but I won't.)

[johnhannibalsmith]

On one of the computers I use, somehow IE got muddled with something claiming to be "powered by Bing" or something along those lines but it is an obvious browser hijack of some sort. You can open the browser without putting up with it, but the moment you try to open a new tab (as opposed to having one open from a link or something), it defaults to this stupid thing that looks more like Goooogle than Bing.

I've made a half-hearted effort at getting rid of it, including trying to change the add-ons where it seems to reside, but it won't go away. Now I just have to run that particular browser (if I use it at all) the old fashioned way without tabs.

Not sure if this is anything like what you have going on, but unlike my home computer, this damn computer updates something every day from MS and seems to get more screwed up with each update.

[DJofSD]

Yes, more like Goooogle is an apt description of what I saw.

I have not had any problems opening new tabs, or, not being able to use the new tab for whatever purpose. This for both opening a new tab using the "+" icon found at the end of the line of existing tabs, or, using the RMB to open either in a new tab or new window (of either flavor).

I am following some companies on Twitter which discuss MS security alerts and preview them prior to MS Update Tuesday. Those updates and the expected notification from MS Update are the only change activity I see from MS and never anything outside of those changes.

Is your "updates from MS every day" for something other than Windows OS updates, like, for example, an Office product, or, Visual tool?

[barn32]

Now that I think about it, I had the same problem a while back, but I can't remember if it was with IE (which I hate and RARELY use) or FF.

Either way I got it solved, and I think they helped me out at MozillaZine (http://forums.mozillazine.org/index.php?sid=7c8bdcd8342e5e44a8b4552fc2d424e2).

Ask there and see what you find out.

[pondman]

Run malwarebyte for free. You've probably got a lot of adware.

[barn32]

I just upgraded CrapCleaner (http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download?upgrade), and there is a checkbox in there to make Chrome my default browser. I almost missed it.

Bing might do the same thing on some applications or add-ons.

[Clocker]

I just upgraded CrapCleaner (http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download?upgrade), and there is a checkbox in there to make Chrome my default browser. I almost missed it.


A lot of free programs that notify you when updates are available have a default option in small print to install a new browser, new anti-virus programs, etc. You have to uncheck a box to opt out.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Ironically, I am now using the computer in my little tale.

My intention was to go into the add-on section of IE to find it, because I located it once and changed the settings from default search and yada yada to try to at least disable it.

When I opened it, there was no trace of it.

I just opened a new tab without any problem for the first time in a week and as of last night when using this computer, it was still there.

But, I again had another batch of updates last night and a new configuration thing running when I turned on.

I don't know if something happened there or not, but it was here and now its gone and this is literally the first thing that I have done since last use.

So, the good news... I can get rid of it.

Bad news... I have no idea how. :D

[DJofSD]

Updated the virus scanner and ran a full scan -- except for a couple of tracking cookies, it found nada.

There's no adware or the such on the system, it's a clean machine.

[Longshot6977]

Here ya go. Try some of the stuff on these links. It appears to be a common issue with Bing hijacking Firefox.

http://ask.metafilter.com/224729/Bing-is-up-in-my-new-tabs-hijacking-my-cursor
http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/861212
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/969308
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2694347

[Dave Schwartz]

I searched for "Fake Bing Page" and a couple of other things which produced some interesting hits.

Hard to understand but good info. Includes where to look for the VIRUS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPYHFFoHdNk

Another one says MALWARE.
http://www.malwareremoval.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=51584#.UrJtb9JDt8E

I would suggest continuing to search.

[JustRalph]

Just be aware that yahoo search is actually "Bing" in disguise

Weirder things have happen with yahoo toolbars