My solution – ultimately – was to delete the ask.com folder in program files; I had to boot up in safe mode and do it from the command prompt, but it worked.

In relation to your observations about the ethics of ask.com, all I can think to add is that Norton and others should take a decision to classify ask.com and every application directly resulting from it as malware, and routinely block it, or at least alert users before it is installed.

http://otherstuf.blogspot.com/2010/11/getting-rid-of-askcom-on-firefox.html

So you are honestly and sincerely saying that your Company did not deliberately, with intent to defraud (meaning to derive monetary gain from dishonest conduct) attack the Mozilla Firefox Browser in order to redirect people from the sites they wished to go to, via Google’s automatic re-router, but instead they were hijacked and forced to visit a site they had no earthly intention of visiting, in doing so generating considerable amounts of money for your Company?

I mean, in order to change the registry/configuration files from within a webpage, the webpage had to be written to bring about that effect. So a deliberate calculated attack on however many browsers it worked on, to generate incredible exposure and profit for your scumbag little company?

This is not a gimmick, it is outright fraud. How many of the ‘Paid Search Results’ appearing on whichever page it is that people are directed to, were aware of your Companies new “Marketing Ploy”? Chances are, given the state of the law on the Internet, you will escape prosecution (although check out the KNO3 Trial and Dow Jones v Gutnik, “False & Misleading Conduct in Trade or Business” may well be actionable wherever the person was misled, ie. if the person, such as myself, was misled here, then you are subject to Australian Law, which has no right of “Free Speech” or anything else).

But apart from that, what can we do? Can we put pressure on Mozilla to carefully check that the people involved in this exercise, including those who paid to be a part of it, are excluded from being able to place advertisments, etc.? I mean it is self-evident, given that the security hack had to be signed for most people to be led astray, that this attack has come someone with intimate knowledge of the Gecko engine, I cannot imagine why Mozilla would have anything to do with such scum in the first place.

I personally am quite willing to avoid Ask.com and any Company associated therewith. I will not voluntarily set my metaphysical feet anywhere near them, nor will I have any dealings with the Companies who obviously, by paying to be a part of such a slimy, underhanded, dishonest & dishonourable scheme, showed their approbation thereof. Thus I feel obliged to vote with those same metaphysical feet and not spend a cent anywhere associated with this despicable scam.

Yours

Aaron

PS When the internet is heavily regulated and the laws start cropping up everywhere, it will because of this type of behavior. Scams where the person is taken advantage of and ends up somewhere other than they want to end up, despite having acted in all ways appropriately, will resonate with Lawmaker’s. The damage done by people like this (who if they studied real hard & worked night and day for a decade maybe, just maybe might become fully fledged halfwits), pulling stunts like this one, is immeasurable. This is not trojans and spyware infecting your computer becasue you habituate Pornography websites, nor is it like the laughably inept Nigerian/etc Bank Scammer’s, this does not require people do do something dumb, or make a wrong choice.

I hope to God that Mozilla takes it seriously, this exact issue is why the laws are going to end up coming in. Because even experienced web-trawlers, who brush off spybots & keyloggers daily, can get entangled in this one, through no fault of their own. That means nobody can be protected from the message assclowns like these idiots have to spread, or for that matter, from being directed to sites which will install proper hacks into your computer while the page is loading.

It is time to take a stand on this, or we risk losing the Internet. I can handle the scam artists as long as they know to stay out of certain boundaries. This is dangerous, truly dangerous, it has shown how a dimwit with a lukewarm IQ can hijack a browser with no assistance from the user thereof and steer that browser to destinations known only to the program in control of the browser.

Whether those programs are keyloggers, password sniffers, or just waiting for Credit Card Transactions, or maybe even darker purposes, the fact remains, there is no protection against it.