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I got an onscreen notice saying that something in firefox was outdated

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  • Last reply by James

RMKPhoto
RMKPhoto
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I got an onscreen notice saying that something in firefox was outdated. When I clicked the Accept & Install button the following programs automatically loaded onto my computer: HD Player-MTCD16044, PC speed clean, VO Package, VLC Media Player, Any Product, & My PC Backup. Did any, or all of these programs come as part of a Firefox update? Did the come from Firefox at all? If not, how did the get to my computer? In retrospect this seems all to similar to the recent IE problems. If they have, or had, nothing to do with firefox how do I get rid of them? If they did come from Firefox which ones are necessary & which ones are just junk? In the future how do I detect legitimate update from bogus ones?

I got an onscreen notice saying that something in firefox was outdated. When I clicked the Accept & Install button the following programs automatically loaded onto my computer: HD Player-MTCD16044, PC speed clean, VO Package, VLC Media Player, Any Product, & My PC Backup. Did any, or all of these programs come as part of a Firefox update? Did the come from Firefox at all? If not, how did the get to my computer? In retrospect this seems all to similar to the recent IE problems. If they have, or had, nothing to do with firefox how do I get rid of them? If they did come from Firefox which ones are necessary & which ones are just junk? In the future how do I detect legitimate update from bogus ones?

All Replies (2)

philipp
philipp
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hello RMKPhoto, this is a scam tactic that is trying to trick you into installing ad- & malware! only download firefox from its official location at mozilla.org - in addition updates are handled automatically by firefox so you don't have to download anything (you can initiate a check for updates in the firefox menu New Fx Menu > help Help-29 > about firefox) - as a rule of thumb: if something is prompting you to download and run a .exe file in order to update firefox this will be fake!

you might also want to run a full scan of your system with the security software already in place and different tools like the free version of malwarebytes, adwcleaner & kaspersky security scan in order to make sure that there isn't already some sort of malware active on your system that triggers these false alerts.

Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware

you could also help by pressing F10 & going to help > report web forgery while you're on a dubious page that send out such notifications - this might get the page into the list of malicious sites that get blocked in firefox (the actual list is maintained by google) or when such pages use the firefox logos or trademarks to trick users into downloading malware you could also file it at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/legal/fraud-report/.

James
James
  • Top 25 Contributor
  • Moderator
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Updates are only done software update in Firefox or by download from mozilla.org and no version for any OS has ever come with any software bundled in.

The site did what it was intended to do, to trick you into installing some things.