Mozilla launches Firefox 4

[noobvious]

When I awoke and came to the computer a bit ago, I was greeted by a firewall dialog asking whether to allow a process named mpsigstub.exe. Somewhat thoughtlessly, I let it. Wondering if I should have done so, I Googled it, and found that it is some kind of updater associated with Windows Defender, but since I had never seen that before, I continued looking and found that it is sometimes malware.

This caused me to run Malwarebytes (which found nothing to squawk about) and SpyBot (which quickly listed a registry key belonging to MTC.MakeMeSearch.com). SpyBot listed that as a browser hyjacker. Further reading, this seemed to be related to a search toolbar. Searching my computer, I found an installed program in the root of Program Files (x86), which was named search toolbar. I uninstalled this, but the fact that it's folder was dated 3-21-2011, and the firewall dialogs that I had to clear, listed Firefox as it's target, and that Firefox was the only program of this type that I had installed in that time frame, makes me believe that Firefox installed it.

I had opted for the custom install of Firefox, as I always do with any program that I can, and I always opt out of anything of this kind, if given a choice. Therefore I either wasn't given the choice, or Firefox ignored me and installed it anyway. I'm now curious if anyone else has found this problem, or if it is just me?

I did not opt for the custom install, but as of yet nothing popped up. SO now I am running full scans with Superantispyware and MSE, and running a Hitman Pro scan too.....so we'll see what happens.

Edit:Hitman turned up only one tracking cookie. Other scans are ongoing....

Nope.
I did a full scan with Malwarebytes before yesterday. Result: "clean".

As I said, Malwarebytes didn't find anything on my computer either...SpyBot did. However, you probably don't need to run that, just check in Program Files (x86) for a folder named Search Toolbar, and also in Programs and Features for the same. If not in either place, then no program is going to detect it.

Well, all my scans came up negative, and after reading this post^^ I looked in those locations, so apparently I'm clean.

 

[seekermeister]

I've never, ever, seen or had this happen with the Firefox install, you must have picked it up somewhere else or don't have noscript installed (As Magus said.)

When I awoke and came to the computer a bit ago, I was greeted by a firewall dialog asking whether to allow a process named mpsigstub.exe. Somewhat thoughtlessly, I let it. Wondering if I should have done so, I Googled it, and found that it is some kind of updater associated with Windows Defender, but since I had never seen that before, I continued looking and found that it is sometimes malware.

This caused me to run Malwarebytes (which found nothing to squawk about) and SpyBot (which quickly listed a registry key belonging to MTC.MakeMeSearch.com). SpyBot listed that as a browser hyjacker. Further reading, this seemed to be related to a search toolbar. Searching my computer, I found an installed program in the root of Program Files (x86), which was named search toolbar. I uninstalled this, but the fact that it's folder was dated 3-21-2011, and the firewall dialogs that I had to clear, listed Firefox as it's target, and that Firefox was the only program of this type that I had installed in that time frame, makes me believe that Firefox installed it.

I had opted for the custom install of Firefox, as I always do with any program that I can, and I always opt out of anything of this kind, if given a choice. Therefore I either wasn't given the choice, or Firefox ignored me and installed it anyway. I'm now curious if anyone else has found this problem, or if it is just me?

Anything is possible, but considering how little that I have used Firefox in the very few days that it has been installed, I would be very surprised if that is so. Since I have installed Firefox, I have only been to a handful of websites, with which I am very familiar, and have never had anything injected previously. Of course, previously I didn't use Firefox at all.

 

[seekermeister]

Use noscript with firefox, it will prevent anything being injected without your permission.

I just installed noscript, and when it asked to restart FF, I let it, but instead of restarting, it popped a couple of dialogs saying that there was a problem with the program, and when I then tried to start FF again, it continues to pop similar errors. How do I uninstall noscript when FF won't start?

 

[Phone Man]

I have the MpSigStub.exe in my widows/system folder and this is what it shows.



I don't show anything about the search toolbar. Maybe some other program installed it.

Jim

 

[seekermeister]

I probably shouldn't have mentioned MpSigStub.exe, because I never really thought that it related to the search toolbar aspect, it was simply my way of describing the path that my mind traveled.

 

[Maguscreed]

Process name: MpSigStub
Application using this process: Microsoft Malware Protection
Process author: Microsoft Corporation

just fyi.

 

[lorddenis]

So far i like it! Visualy look's great. No crashes etc so far.

 

[seekermeister]

Use noscript with firefox, it will prevent anything being injected without your permission.

I just installed noscript, and when it asked to restart FF, I let it, but instead of restarting, it popped a couple of dialogs saying that there was a problem with the program, and when I then tried to start FF again, it continues to pop similar errors. How do I uninstall noscript when FF won't start?

Since there was no response to this question, I went ahead an ran a System Restore, which appears to have taken care of the problem...at least FF does now open. Obviously, I know nothing about noscript, except the general purpose of the program. However, when I now go to Hulu, it complains that Java Script is not enabled, and since noscript also appears to block the Flash Player, I'm trying to decide whether to just white list Hulu, or disable noscript. I'm not particularly fond of anything that I have to contend with to do what I want. Before making a decision, I wanted to see if I might get some input on this here?

 

[Maguscreed]

Using commonsense will be required with noscript, if you want the level of protection it provides you are going to have to offer input, all you need to do is allow the item it is a tad annoying at first while you allow all your regular sites. It saves the settings you chose though so it's only on a first time basis.

I hold to it because I've been using it for 3 years now, in that time I haven't gotten the slightest bug despite having visited many questionable sites during that time. I don't even run a active antivirus I just scan once a week out of habit, have not found anything in a long time though.

 

[Phone Man]

Flash also requires Javascript enabled to operate.

Jim

 

[Rhammstein]

So far I like FF4 and IE9 both so much, I really can't decide on one.

The only thing I've noticed, FF4 seems to prefer using the Cpu for most work, while IE9 shoots for the Gpu whenever possible, this is especially true for video, be it flash, html5 or whatever. I've been bored, and monitoring with AMD System Monitor, which shows how much workload is x86, and how much is GPGPU.

In the end, it really doesn't matter Just me being bored and wanting to know how they behave. I guess maybe IE9 is accellerating more content than FF4, however, performance is always identical, except for one thing: When watching video, regardless of what type, so long as it's being rendered by the browser, IE9 certainly handles it better and doesn't get bogged down. For example, when watching a youtube video with FF4, Gpu load is very minimal (All of this done on both of my PC's btw) but when scrolling up and down, it gets choppy and Cpu usage flies up, with IE9, it's perfectly smooth regardless and Gpu usage simply rises, and Cpu usage rises just slightly.

It seems IE9 is very liberal with the hardware accelleration, and FF4 only partial, however there is a good reason I think. FF4 uses far less resources, both Cpu and Memory (Gpu load IMO doesn't matter since it would otherwise be idling doing nothing anyway, because both browsers bring each of my Gpu's out of their idle state, both only a slight bump in voltage and clock speed, core clock that is), while IE9 uses a bit more, and naturally when the going gets tough, IE9 copes better.

In the end, it doesn't matter, I can't see any difference as far as in-page performance between the two, other than some choppyness with FF4, but only in situations that really don't matter; such as, how often must I scroll up and down a page which has video playing lol.

I will say, as far as pure browsing and loading of content, FF4 and IE9 x86 are so close I can't tell, however IE9 x64 is a complete dog, as all benchmarks have shown. Hopefully one day IE9 x64 will get the newer engine and tweaks that IE9 x86 has, until then I don't use it as often. I 'do' use it when trying to access websites I'm not very comfortable with, but only because I assume it's slightly more secure.

Forgive the length, just trying to summarize the last few weeks of usage.

 

[Maguscreed]

As I was just telling someone in a pm all the tiny differences don't really matter to me, as it stands all the plugins and add-ons I like are on FF. If it's half a second slower loading a page because of it, I don't really care.

My refusal to use IE has a lot less to do with its performance but rather with the fact that in the past it was nothing but a virus factory for both me and my friends.

As it stand internet explorer is not even installed on my system. I have removed it. The only reason I kept it in the past is because windows update refused to work without it.

 

[Rhammstein]

Before Windows Vista came along, I felt the same way, it was beyond awful, just seeing the little blue E struck fear in me...lol.

However, since Vista and IE8, and protected mode along with many other enhancements, mostly OS related, I've done a complete 180*.

But I can certainly understand why you might feel that way, and wouldn't bother trying to talk you out of it.

 

[BevDaBronxbabe]

FF4 is great,but................................

Just installed. Awesome. Now the waiting game for extensions to get updated...

Even old extensions will work if you disable compatibility check

Can you tell me what you do to disable this? I've found through all of my web searching that disabling compatibility checks, doesn't allow my add-ons to function in FF4 RC.

I was forced to purchase Roboform 7 because version 6 doesn't work with it. :sarc:

 

[seekermeister]

Using commonsense will be required with noscript, if you want the level of protection it provides you are going to have to offer input, all you need to do is allow the item it is a tad annoying at first while you allow all your regular sites. It saves the settings you chose though so it's only on a first time basis.

I hold to it because I've been using it for 3 years now, in that time I haven't gotten the slightest bug despite having visited many questionable sites during that time. I don't even run a active antivirus I just scan once a week out of habit, have not found anything in a long time though.

No quibble that a person should use what they are comfortable with, but I will add that I have used Opera a lot longer than 3 years, and never got anything like we are discussing. I won't say that is entirely due to the browser's security, but it helped. It was due primarily due to my use in "common sense" regarding where I browsed on the web.

I'm certain that many people need a cyber prophylactic to protect their computer's purity, but I haven't had much use for one. Despite this, I continually run a battery of security programs anyway, so I kind of feel that noscript is somewhat redundant. Still, I will keep it for a while, until I can make a more insightful decision about it than I can now.

 

[Maguscreed]

Well my issue here is something installed to your system, wrote files outside of the browser's space in appdata. That couldn't have happened without user input, unless you've disabled uac.

 

[seekermeister]

Yes, I have disabled UAC, and it is going to remain that way. Despite your belief that the fault is due to something that I did other than that, it simply is not the case. One way or another, that search toolbar was installed by FF.

 

[Snowdog]

No quibble that a person should use what they are comfortable with, but I will add that I have used Opera a lot longer than 3 years, and never got anything like we are discussing. I won't say that is entirely due to the browser's security, but it helped. It was due primarily due to my use in "common sense" regarding where I browsed on the web.

You have no evidence at all that you got anything because of Firefox. You are heaping undeserved FUD on Firefox here. FF4 has been installed 25+ million times already now. If it contained Malware it would be a top story on every tech site in the world by now.

It isn't necessary to use noscript. I used Firefox for 7 years on insecure WindowsXP, without no script, and never picked up any viruses or Mal-ware. Not because FF is insecure.

It is extremely unlikey that you even picked up anything visiting a suspect site with FF4 because the malware writers likely don't even have an exploit yet.

Given how secure Windows7 is these days, you have to work hard to pick up malware. You likely installed something with a extra toolbar and forgot to uncheck it. This shouldn't have happened if you get your software from trusted sources.

Did you perhaps grab extensions from other than Mozilla?

 

[Zirro]

Font Blurriness in FF 4.0

If you are having problems with fonts being a bit blurry in FF 4.0 try this FF addon.

https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefo...=all&x=17&y=20



I used:

• Enhanced contrast 50%
• Clear Type Level 50%
• Anti-aliaising mode = Clear Type
• Rendering mode GDI Classic

It produced a huge improvement in FF4 font rendering on my machine.

Thanks to Mike Connnor for recommending the addon.

 

[Maguscreed]

I'm not here for an argument, I'm dropping my sub to this thread, sorry I apparently offended you.