13 Firefox windows autolaunched when updating to SSD 2.4

I had a fairly old version of SSD (sorry, can't remember the version number), and during the updating process to SSD 2.4 free edition, 13 firefox windows autolaunched, then minimized to the task bar.

My guess is that this is not the normal order of things, and that I have some at least moderately sophisticated malware on my machine that is thwarting SSD.

I'm primarily interested in confirming or invalidating my suspicion that the firefox autolaunch was malware generated.

I think the long term solution will have to be switching from XP service pack 3 to a flavor of linux, which I hope to do soon.

Can't recall the version of FF at the time of the update. I've got 35 now, I think the version that I had at the time was 34.?

Was that an upgrade to 2.4 through the program,or did you download Spybot 2.4 from a website?

Thanks for your reply. It was through the program.

All applications were closed except SSD. I was not running it in safe mode.

You're welcome. :)

I think it might be possible that after you installed Spybot,it may have attempted to launch a webpage in order to show you something or other on it's website,and when it failed,then the pages kept on being launched in Firefox,not on purpose,just by accident.Why I think that,I'm not sure,it's just based on a vague memory,and could be false on my part.

Unless you've noticed other things happening since,such as websites opening on their own,etc.,then it's usually(though not always)okay.
There's an article here(I picked one I liked at random.)
http://www.pcworld.com/article/28537...ale-signs.html

hi Zenobia, thank you again for your post.

I'm pretty sure the firefox windows launched immediately when I initiated the update process.

I'm also 100% sure I've got malware on my machine. When I started using duck duck go instead of google, I got hijacked multiple times back to google. It gave up on that eventually though.

My "privacy" and "data choices" options in firefox have been involuntarily reset multiple times. The dom storage that I deactivated was reactivated, and the eff privacy badger that I installed was mysteriously uninstalled.

You're welcome. :)

If you're certain you have malware,you might want to switch to linux,as you said you might.The severity of the malware you might have isn't known,but it is known that support for windows XP from Microsoft has ended,so it might be best to move on from that operating system.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/w...d-support-help

But,if you aren't or can't switch just yet,you might want to ask for help in the malware removal forum.It's up to you. :)

If you do go to malware removal,please read this first:
http://forums.spybot.info/showthread...tance)-Updated

And this is the malware removal forum:
http://forums.spybot.info/forumdispl...alware-Removal

thank you :)

You're welcome. :)