Possible virus ?
 

This evening I received a pop up window saying I had won. " you've made the 5-billionth search " on firefox.
It looked fishy. It wanted me to select a prize or something.
I did not click on anything and closed the tab.

Is my getting this scam pop up an indication of a virus on my linux?
If so, what do I do about it ?

Is there any safe for linux virus detection or prevention program{s}?

Thanks.

Maggie

Could be just something some fishy websites popped up.
Try confirming by visiting the site you visited just prior.
If you keep getting the same every time you open Firefox, regardless of the website you visit, then it probably has messed up your profile; try starting with a fresh one.

ondoho.

I replicated the offer from a site I went to in order to find a particular movie online.Does that mean it was that site that produced the popup, and since I did not click on anything on that page, no problem was caused ?
Hope so.

Do you know if there is any "safe for linux" virus detection or prevention program{s}?

Thanks,

Maggie

I've seen similar pop ups several times on different sites and don't believe it would be a virus. You could clear cookies and site data on firefox by clicking the 3 horizontal bar icon in the upper right, select Settings from the drop down and go to Privacy and Security on the left of the new window and scroll down to the option Cookies and Site Data. You will have several options there. I'm not sure this will resolve the problem but I would not worry about a virus because of that.

^^^ what yancek said

Plus, I recommend an ad blocker, such as the uBlock Origin Firefox extension.

No.

To answer your question about scanning for malware, see:

https://geekflare.com/linux-security-scanner/

Likely.
Who knows. Simply allowing javascript on bad sites is ... well, bad. But usually these sites are in some database that FF accesses before it opens it. Usually...

The definition of virus is fluent... As I said, if it happens whenever you start your browser prior to actually loading any sites it could be called a browser virus.
Otherwise, just bad browsing habits... :D

yancek and SlowCoder,

Thanks for your replies. I cleared cookies and site data, as well as added uBlock origin. I already had adblock plus, but hopefully adding uBlock will help even more.
No further problems so hopefully you are correct there is no virus involved. :)

Maggie

ondoho,

I am unclear as to what you mean by " just bad browsing habits ". How does anyone avoid having that happen? I am open to improving my browsing habits, but I need to know specifically how I would do that.

"Simply allowing javascript on bad sites is ... well, bad"..... How does one avoid those sites ?

Thanks

Maggie

Actually, uBlock Origin is a replacement for AdBlock Plus, because the latter started letting companies buy their way past the filters :(

So uBlock Orign was forked from ABP...

I also run NoScript, Ghostery & Privacy Badger. The first in particular is well worth having, although it does involve a bit of training of the SW.

Whilst uBlock Origin should definitely be considered a replacement for Adblock Plus (and AdBlock, and all the various copycats), it was not forked from it.

(uBlock Origin does support the filter lists/syntax which were originally created for AdBlock, and later used by Adblock Plus, but the extension itself is different.)


The companies behind Ghostery have also done dubious things; I put Ghostery in the same category as AdBlock and Adblock Plus as an extension to avoid.

I do second the recommendation of EFF's Privacy Badger - no/minimal config needed.

Check which Firefox extensions you have installed. It’s possible you *did* get a virus in the form of a bad extension.

I seem to remember that one of its main "selling points" was also that it runs much lighter than ABP.

Absolutely.

dugan,

I just removed Adblock plus. That leaves privacy badger, HTTPS everywhere, uBlock origin, and Duck duck go privacy essentials.
Are those extensions all okay ?

" It’s possible you *did* get a virus in the form of a bad extension."

So is the problem gone once the bad extension is removed?

Maggie