[SOLVED] Firefox randomly redirecting me

[Vikeyev]

Ever since I first installed OpenSuSE 11.2 on my pc firefox has been randomly redirecting me to weird web pages. It doesn't matter what website I try to visit whether it be this one or youtube or even my clan website, often times I will somehow randomly get redirected, sometimes before the page even fully loads. If I try to click the back button it just redirects me again and the only way I found to make it stop is to either X off the tab and then bring up a new one or go to another website and then go back to the one i wanted.

The majority of times it redirects me to what is likely either the worst advertisement for an antivirus program I have ever seen in my life, or the worst attempt at trying to convince people to download a virus I have ever seen in my life. In the tab it will come up with what is supposed to be the my computer folder and starts scanning various directories and detecting viruses (I wouldn't fall for this even If i was using windows). I don't know what happens after that I usually X it off.

If anyone has any ideas about what could possibly causing this, or needs more information I would be grateful and happy to oblige.

One last thing, firefox seems to be crashing ALL the time, not sure if this might be linked but it is really annoying.

Thank you for your time.

[rokytnji]

Sounds like your ~/.firefox foler in /home has been comprimised. It is a hidden folder named .firefox in /home. You will need to view hidden files to see it in /home.

I would delete ~/.firefox folder. Reboot. Let a new ~/.firefox folder be made. Start fresh. You will lose bookmarks and all saved settings in firefox. But it will be clean and pristine.

If problem persists you may have to delete ~/.mozilla folder also (it will be regenerated on reboot also). But I would just start out by deleting .firefox first.

Edit:Segfault is right. A Malicious plugin could be at fault also. Disable all plugins before trying what I suggest first. Maybe you can find the bad one.

[Segfault]

I've never heard of bad plugins, but it's certainly possible to write plugins that cripple your Firefox.

[Vikeyev]

I've never heard of bad plugins, but it's certainly possible to write plugins that cripple your Firefox.

Well I disabled some plugins but I'm unsure as to whether or not it's stopped it as it was kind of a random occurrence. I'll get back to you as to whether or not it happens within the next 2 days.

[Rubberman]

Definitely start by disabling all your extensions and plugins. If that stops it from occuring, then start enabling them one at a time until you get the problem again - that is the culprit. If that doesn't stop it, then remove ~/.mozilla/firefox and restart it. Some systems it may simply be ~/.firefox, but that's not the case on my RHEL/CentOS 5 system. It uses ~/.mozilla/firefox to store profiles, plugins, etc. If it still happens, then as root remove the mozilla system plugins and extensions which are in /usr/lib/mozilla - remove that entire directory. If you are running a 64-bit version of Linux, then you will also need to (possibly) remove /usr/lib64/mozilla and/or /usr/lib32/mozilla.

BTW, which version of Firefox are you running?

[Vikeyev]

Definitely start by disabling all your extensions and plugins. If that stops it from occuring, then start enabling them one at a time until you get the problem again - that is the culprit. If that doesn't stop it, then remove ~/.mozilla/firefox and restart it. Some systems it may simply be ~/.firefox, but that's not the case on my RHEL/CentOS 5 system. It uses ~/.mozilla/firefox to store profiles, plugins, etc. If it still happens, then as root remove the mozilla system plugins and extensions which are in /usr/lib/mozilla - remove that entire directory. If you are running a 64-bit version of Linux, then you will also need to (possibly) remove /usr/lib64/mozilla and/or /usr/lib32/mozilla.

BTW, which version of Firefox are you running?

I think 3.6, not 100% sure on that though. I disabled all of my plugins and extensions and it is still happening, I think the only option is to remove the entire directory, I think I might wanna go back and bookmark some of my history pages as well so that they are their for me.

[Rubberman]

Well, it just occurred to me that there is another possibility, that you are using a cache-poisoned DNS server and these redirections are happening because you are getting the wrong IP addresses.

[Vikeyev]

Well, it just occurred to me that there is another possibility, that you are using a cache-poisoned DNS server and these redirections are happening because you are getting the wrong IP addresses.

What on earth does that mean???

[Rubberman]

There are internet hackers that to target a site (or sites) for redirecting them to spam and/or malware sites get access to DNS servers used by those sites (sometimes embedded those sites' routers/firewalls) and corrupt their name/address caches so that when you try to go to www.xyzzy.com, you get redirected to www.somewhereelse.com. This is called DNS cache poisoning. A nasty business, but used for a lot of really black hats on the internet.

[Vikeyev]

There are internet hackers that to target a site (or sites) for redirecting them to spam and/or malware sites get access to DNS servers used by those sites (sometimes embedded those sites' routers/firewalls) and corrupt their name/address caches so that when you try to go to www.xyzzy.com, you get redirected to www.somewhereelse.com. This is called DNS cache poisoning. A nasty business, but used for a lot of really black hats on the internet.

Well something tells me your right because I reformatted and am now running mandriva and it's doing the exact same thing. How do I fix it?