Does not immunize default Firefox.

[hammond mike]

For the last several updates, the immunize function works for all but the Firefox default (Cookies, Images, Installations, and Popups). All IE and Windows Global, as well as Firefox Flash-Yes (Cookies, Images, Installations, and Popups) immunize and are protected. How do I immunize and protect the Firefox default (Cookies, Images, Installations, and Popups)??? Previously, they all immunized, now these four no longer do.

[Greyfox]

mike,

You haven't given a lot to go on, what operating system do you have, what version of Spybot, what version of Firefox, what firewall and what AV system. Some of this might be relative.

Have you tried un-immunising (undo the immunisation) and then re-immunising, sometimes that works?

If you are using Firefox 3 you might try upgrading Spybot to version 1.6 and see if this fixes the problem. Please un-immunise and also untick both the resident browser helper and Teatimer if you are using them, then uninstall the older version before installing the new. This will often give better results than simply installing the new version over the old.

[hammond mike]

Un-immunize does not completely remove the protection from Windows Global (Hosts). I completely removed 1.6 (including using the Regedit4 file) and reinstalled 1.6 from a fresh download. Still the same problem!!!

I have FF3, AVG8 free, and PC Tools Firewall Plus. My OS is XP Home SP3.

I am not using Resident browser helper or Teatimer.

I downloaded updates of 6 Aug, but this did not help. The other instance of Firefox that does immunize is Flash-Yes, in all four categories. Is this sufficient information???

[spybotsandra]

Hello,

With the introduction of Firefox 3, Mozilla introduced a different file and file format where the immunization could be applied. Spybot-S&D may still support the older format which is also used by many other Mozilla-based browsers, but for better future compatibility, if it does not detect which version a browser profile belongs to, it defaults to the newer scheme, which older browsers do not use.

That the profile version is not properly detected usually happens only with new profiles that have never been immunized with previous versions of Spybot-S&D, and never has any sites, cookies, etc. blocked manually (which I think is very rare). In that case, you can trick it to be detected as the older version.

1. Browse to your browsers profile folder using Windows Explorer (or your favorite other file manager of course).
2. Look for a file named permissions.sqlite and one named hostperm.1.
3. If the former is shown as larger than 0 bytes, skip these steps.
4. Delete the permissions.sqlite file that is 0 bytes large.
5. Right-click the list, select New, then Text Document.
6. Rename the new, empty, text document to hostperm.1 .

This way, Spybot-S&D will detect the older style of immunization (it sees hostperm.1)
and does know that you have not updated to the newest browser release (permissions.sqlite) yet.
Where the later might not be your fault, afaik Firefox 3 is the first to use SQLite
databases for this purpose and the others will probably still have to follow.
We apologize for causing additional manual work, but this way the default will be safer the more other browsers browsers get up-to-date.

Best regards
Sandra
Team Spybot

[meutrich]

I have the problem that spybot 1.6 will not immunize firefox version 2.0.0.16.
There still are over 27.000 items not protected.
I have Windows XP with SP2 and my firewall is sygate pers. fw. version 5.6

[spybotsandra]

Hello,

Did you try the workaround with the sqlite?

Best regards
Sandra
Team Spybot

[Greyfox]

Un-immunize does not completely remove the protection from Windows Global (Hosts)

If you mean that un-immunise removes all of the immunisation EXCEPT for Global Hosts, it is probably because the Host file is being locked by another program, usually the firewall or another antispyware product.

[meutrich]

Hello,

@spybotsandra did you talk to me?
Yes I tried to empty hostperm. After that I run Spybot, it shows 0 protected items for firefox. Now I let it imunize and after that it left 27131 items unprotected.
Unptotected items for firefox:
191 cookies
8980 Images
8980 default installations
8980 popups.

Btw. is it correct that Spybot shows each item 2 times. e.g. for cookies one line shows 191 items unprotected and the next line shows 191 items protected?
Please look at the image I uploaded prior this day.

[spybotsandra]

Hello,

Go to the folder:
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox

There please delete the permissions.sqlite and generate a new file for the hostperm.1 that is empty.
Now please immunize again.
That should solve the problem.

This information is also available in our forum:
http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=30681

Best regards
Sandra
Team Spybot

[hammond mike]

My other computer has the same setup, except that it uses XPPro. I just downloaded and installed the latest updates without any problem!!! Why should my XPHome computer be having problems while my XPPro computer does not, even tho both are using the same programs???

[hammond mike]

The problem was in the Guest Account, where the permissions.sqlite file existed at zero bytes. Removing the offending file and installing the new hostperm.1 file did the trick!!! Thanks for all your help.