virus?addware? can anyone tell me what this was?
 

This is probably a newbie question, but I kinda freaked out because of this.
I never had any security problem with Linux, and I think it is a great operating system. And yet, after one whole year without a problem, finally one came up.

I was just browsing the web, on Opera 9.01 . There were mostly harmless sites, or should have been, about a mountain resort in my country. I have cookies enabled, and Opera is set to delete them when it closes. So far so good.
I was also chatting with some friends on gaim.
Then, my web connection seemed to be failing. This is usual, as my provider sucks, and I don't really know if this is or not part of the problem.
And then, suddenly, Firefox oppened (it is set as my default browser), and displayed a message about the fact that the browser stores info on my computer and blablabla and that I need to download disk cleaner or something. I clicked on X and another Firefox window oppened. Probably the download site of that thing. I closed it. Another window appeared and a message asking me if I want my computer scanned. I closed Opera, and then I closed this window too, and it seemed to be over.
I scanned everything with the bit defender console edition, and it didn't detect anything.
I checked the firewall log files, and they didn't say anything either.

Any idea what that was and why that was? Do I need to check anything else?

Sorry for the noob question, but, as I said, it was the weirdest experience I ever had with Linux. I meen, if this would have happened on Windows, I wouldn't be surprised, but on Linux?

Any info will help. I'm still learning here.

Edit: Perhaps I should have posted it under the Security topics.... too late now...

I'd feel pretty confident. Provided you were running Opera as a user you could only have damaged your user data which you'll probably notice in the not too distant future. Other than that I'd be tempted to try do it again, identify the source and if it is a "harmless local resort site" then send them nasty emails telling them to take the shit off their site.

Thanks.
The user data wouldn't matter much, as I just started using Opera.
The first thing I did after I posted here and calmed down was to go to the sites I went to and have a closer look at the cookies.
These are the things which I don't know what they are:
pixelpopslot="1"
__utma="<long line of numbers i don't remember>"

what are these?

I also went to an image hosting site, but unfortunately I can't remember it's address...
Oh well... At least now I've learned I should be more careful, even with Linux.

Definitely! Well it sucks when you learn the lesson that hard way but at least you got away with everything intact :)

Is it possible that a compnent of Opera was running in the background and was some how able to cause an instance of Firefox to spawn?

I really cant see what you experienced actually making any permanant damage to your linux O/S unless you have modified file permissions in critical areas of your system.

I'd say you just experienced a really bad case of popup-itis.

Regards,
Greenie

Well, I don't know if Opera is really to blame for this. I don't think it had anything running except the basic stuff.
No damage was done on the system, as far as I can see. I was running a regular user, and it didn't have access to any system files.

On Windows, this frequently happens, especially if I don't have my firewall on (unfortunately, I once was forced to go online without any protection on windows).
My guess is that it could also be the web provider, much because this almost never happened when I had another provider.
Anyway, now, all my ports are closed, cookies are disabled, and all should go well from now on. I still haven't discovered the site where that could have come from.