Interrupted immunization leaves browser unusable - unless Spybot is installed

[SgtBrutalisk]

Hey guys, I finally decided to give this new Spybot a try, because I remember using it before. I install it, run the immunization and I wait for maybe 15 minutes until I decide that I can't bothered to wait, so I stop the process. Meanwhile, I've opened the Firefox browser and started surfing. As I click undo immunization and it does its thing, I notice something weird - my Firefox has become unusable.

Almost every link I type into the address bar turns out to Google's 404 page with the message "/(website) was not found on this server". For example, trying to open "facebook.com", attempts to open the page as a file and says "This file is of type octet/stream" etc.
In all that mess, mozilla's default start page works normally as well as google.com and google search. In fact, I can search for anything on google and get real results, just that clicking on any of them brings me back to google.com.

Also one funny thing, another site works, battle.net, official site of the Blizzard company, which I was surfing while that immunization undoing was taking place. However, if Spybot is installed, the Firefox works perfectly ok. I also have IE 8 and Firefox portable and they works at all times, no problem. Just the Firefox I have installed and only when I uninstall Spybot.

I've tried installing and reinstalling both Spybot and Firefox around 10 times each, on different locations etc. Always the same result: as long as Spybot is installed, Firefox works.

I will keep trying to install different version of Firefox, I think the newest one has "Reset all" function or something like that.

I know I messed up, but there were real trouble for me this day with helping my brother reinstall Windows from USB stick, he keeps getting BSODs (my guess is it's faulty hardware).

If anyone can help me resolve this, that would be great. Thanks!

[SgtBrutalisk]

Well, I think I have solved it. Situation turned out pretty weird, but summa summarum, it all ended well.

The matter of the fact was, and I have a little secret to admit, I was using the old Firefox 3.6 and I stubbornly refused to get on with the times. This situation, with the interrupted Spybot immunization, presented itself in such a way that it was impossible for me to continue using the old version of Firefox. It was really a relic, once useful, now slow, outdated and sluggish. And the funny thing is, I grew accustomed to its flaws like one grows accustomed to mosquitoes - you learn to tolerate them. But now, seriously, FF 21 is blazing fast. I actually like it.

I've uninstalled Spybot, though I did do the whole immunization thingy. It running made this newest Firefox really unresponsive. I think it was a mistake to try to make Spybot into a real time scan thing and what not. I remember using it a long time ago for passive protection, it was revered among geeks for what it did. I could install it once on a PC, make it do its magic, uninstall it and don't think about it until next Windows reinstall. Now, I don't have a really fast PC and every bit of performance juice I can squeeze from it counts.

Also, I wonder how you guys stress-test Spybot. I mean, what I did was by no means extraordinary, it just happened but I would suggest adding some checks so this doesn't happen while the browser is running etc.

[bbnetwork]

Did you run the Immunisation with Administrator-Rights?

[SgtBrutalisk]

Did you run the Immunisation with Administrator-Rights?

Yes, I am using administrator rights.
I've discovered what was going on.

Because I got error messages that were mentioning something about proxies, I got an idea to check Firefox 3.6 options and found the following:

When I go to Tools>Options>Advanced>Network>(Connection) Settings
there is a choice of four radio buttons:

1) No proxy
2) Auto-detect proxy settings for this network
3) Use system proxy settings
4) Manual proxy settings...

In my case, option number 3 was selected.

I am quite sure I've never messed with those settings and I'm confident the only time I was curious enough to check them option number 1 was selected.

Switching it to number 2 made Firefox 3.6 work again, although with certain visual glitches on websites - Facebook wouldn't display all its icons properly, but otherwise it was usable.
Switching to option 1, "No proxy", made everything normal.

Conclusion: Somehow, Spybot - Search&Destroy changed Firefox's proxy option. I have no knowledge on how this might have happened, but I did use "Undo immunization" while Firefox was running.

[bbnetwork]

Yes, I am using administrator rights.
I've discovered what was going on.

Because I got error messages that were mentioning something about proxies, I got an idea to check Firefox 3.6 options and found the following:

When I go to Tools>Options>Advanced>Network>(Connection) Settings
there is a choice of four radio buttons:

1) No proxy
2) Auto-detect proxy settings for this network
3) Use system proxy settings
4) Manual proxy settings...

In my case, option number 3 was selected.

I am quite sure I've never messed with those settings and I'm confident the only time I was curious enough to check them option number 1 was selected.

Switching it to number 2 made Firefox 3.6 work again, although with certain visual glitches on websites - Facebook wouldn't display all its icons properly, but otherwise it was usable.
Switching to option 1, "No proxy", made everything normal.

Conclusion: Somehow, Spybot - Search&Destroy changed Firefox's proxy option. I have no knowledge on how this might have happened, but I did use "Undo immunization" while Firefox was running.

you can either select option 1 or leave option 3, but in this case you will need to make sure into the global Settings of Internet Explorer (Internetoptions -> Connection -> LAN-Settings) the option "Use a Proxy to access the Internet" is disabled!