Solved: How to remove Fake windows defender virus warning

[hchristiani]

Hi got a mozilla pop-up window with a (fake) windows defender warning about being infected with the zeus virus.
Of course this is rubbish, quite a few people in the windows world got these.
My problem is that all the advice about how to remove this pop-up is for windows.
It comes back after every re-boot.
Does anybody know how to remove this in Linux Mint 18?
Trawled the web and used Google with no avail.
Thanks in advance. Herman (Linux newbie)

[Sir Charles]

Do you use any adblocker and/or scriptblocker of the sort?

[Pierre]

Hi Herman,
what you need to do, is to determine, what software is being used to create that pop-up.

ie: is it Adobe / Shockwave Flash, or something similar ?.
and have that set to "never activate", via add-on manager.

[Arch_Enemy]

Hi got a mozilla pop-up window with a (fake) windows defender warning about being infected with the zeus virus.
Of course this is rubbish, quite a few people in the windows world got these.
My problem is that all the advice about how to remove this pop-up is for windows.
It comes back after every re-boot.
Does anybody know how to remove this in Linux Mint 18?
Trawled the web and used Google with no avail.
Thanks in advance. Herman (Linux newbie)

Shrink firefox to a window.

Drag the offending tab out of the window, creating another window.

Close the window, or use system monitor to close it, if it doesn't close.

[Flemur]

Hi got a mozilla pop-up window with a (fake) windows defender warning about being infected with the zeus virus.

The one with the computer-reading a message?

It comes back after every re-boot.

Have you set
Prefs->When Firefox Starts -> (don't) Show last time
? I think all I did to get rid of it was set that (already set that way) and kill firefox, then restart it. Does the stupid thing prevent you from setting preferneces with the menu?

Also clean everything (except passwords) Ctrl+Shift+Del
then restart.

If that doesn't work (part of my occasional 'clean'):

Code: Select all

rm -rf ~/.mozilla/firefox/cache/firefox/*
rm -rf ~/.mozilla/firefox/profile.default/datareporting/*
rm -rf ~/.mozilla/firefox/profile.default/saved-telemetry-pings
rm -rf ~/.mozilla/firefox/profile.default/storage/default
rm -rf ~/.mozilla/firefox/profile.default/storage/temporary

If that doesn't work, you might need to delete your old ~/.mozilla directory and reinstall addons, save password files (2 of them), bookmarks...

[Mattyboy]

This will probably work.

Back up your bookmarks: bookmarks/show all bookmarks/import and back up
Close firefox
Go to your home folder and press ctrl + H and delete the folder ..mozilla
Open firefox and re-add your bookmarks
Done.

Go to: tools/addons/extensions and install ublock origin
and maybe
NoScript
httpseverywhere.

Note this method will delete all your other firefox settings including passwords.

[AZgl1800]

Using a Password Manager will keep you out of trouble,
I usually never let Firefox "keep the passwords", I let LastPass fill in the blanks for any website that has personal data.

[hchristiani]

Do you use any adblocker and/or scriptblocker of the sort?

Yes I do, adblock on Chrome and Firefox

[hchristiani]

Hi, thanks for all the help, it was quite a persistent pop-up and prevented me from changing.
In the end the easiest solution was uninstalling Firefox and deleting .mozilla.
not a big deal I have a Lastpass and speed dial pro 2 accounts. Thanks

[Sir Charles]

Do you use any adblocker and/or scriptblocker of the sort?

Yes I do, adblock on Chrome and Firefox

Hi hchristiani,
I would second Mattyboy's suggestion above on the installation of those three addons. With such a combination most baddies will keep out of your
browsers. For Chrome there is ScriptSafe, as alternative to NoScript in FireFox. ScriptSafe is available for FF too.

[Hoser Rob]

Do you use any adblocker and/or scriptblocker of the sort?

Yes I do, adblock on Chrome and Firefox

I find that uBlock Origin is much better than adblock or adblock plus.

[hchristiani]

Do you use any adblocker and/or scriptblocker of the sort?

Yes I do, adblock on Chrome and Firefox

I find that uBlock Origin is much better than adblock or adblock plus.

Hi, yes I have has installed uBlock origin on Firefox,
after the above troubles I checked to make sure,
to my surprise uBlock and Adblock both were swiched "OFF"
I never did this, maybe they have newer scripts to disable them?
Quite happy I don't have to deal with windows anymore.

[Moem]

Hi, thanks for all the help, it was quite a persistent pop-up and prevented me from changing.
In the end the easiest solution was uninstalling Firefox and deleting .mozilla.

Okay cool. To mark the topic as solved, please edit the title of the first post in the thread; that way, it can be seen from the forum overview page. Thanks!