AboutKeith Davis Expertise Advice on how to avoid viruses and spyware. Suggestions on what software to run to avoid viruses and spyware. Identification of spyware, trojan, or virus infestations.
Experience As a PC tech, removing and identifying many viruses and trojans from customer's PCs.
Education/Credentials Currently studying for the Network CompTIA certification.
Question QUESTION: I am using now mozilla firefox 3.0.1 but i could not load any webpages involving antiviruses and other security sites. as a result, my antivirus (avast!) could not be updated because connection to the server fails. i think of the cause as a virus. any thoughts?
thanks.
ANSWER: It may not be a virus. Have you been able to connect to the internet since installing firefox? If not it could be your connection settings. They should be automatic according to what OS you have. Open firefox, go to "tools" >options> advanced> network tab> connections> settings> it should be set to "no proxy" unless you are connecting to the internet by a proxy server. If this doesn't work try this:
Try starting your computer in safe mode. For most OS's you click F8 or F5 as the machine is starting up. You will then be asked if you want to start in safe mode. You will need to pick the option "safe mode with networking" if you connect to the internet through a dsl or cable router.
Try running a virus scan in safe mode and updating avast from safe mode. This may not be a virus but a trojan or malware.
If you are not running any anti-spyware programs you can get Spybot search and destroy from www.majorgeeks.com, install, update, and do a scan and remove everything it finds.
Let me know how you come out and we will try something else.
Keith
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QUESTION: yes, i have been able to connect to the internet since installing firefox, in fact, i could load webpages from the web (like google, yahoo, and more common sites) except for sites, such as grisoft, symantec, avast, and even majorgeeks.com, even though i tried to go to safe mode with networking.
i could not download spybot search and destroy (for majorgeeks would not work) and could still not update my AV.
i checked my settings for firefox and everything seems to be fine.
thanks for your concern.
Answer This is weird. I have never run across this problem before. It would probably be best to go straight to the source. Go to the Firefox support forum and ask the question there and see what they say. http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Support+Website+Forums
Let me know what they say so I will know if this happens to me in the future.
