Adware Threats 'Mintcast' and 'Shell&Services' Secretly Disabling Firefox Safe Browsing Service

Most of our lives revolve around the Internet in some capacity, and when things don't work correctly when we attempt to access the Internet to get valuable information or even check our bank account, life gets complicated. Those complications are exacerbated when malicious threats and annoyances, such as adware, prevents our access to the information superhighway.

There are been an onslaught of recent adware threat discoveries that have been severely annoying. However, among the many adware threats discovered every day, there are specifically two particular threats that are sneakily turning off Firefox safe browsing features, which is leaving users of the popularized web browser vulnerable to loading malicious sites that are otherwise blacklisted by the Safe Browsing service.

Many web browser applications, such as Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Firefox have a built-in defense against loading malicious pages. Many of them, such as Firefox, utilize a Google-managed service called Safe Browsing. The service is known to have an extensive list of blacklisted web pages that if access is attempted on a web browser, the site is not loaded to prevent malicious scripts or downloads from running when the page or site is loaded.

In the case of Mozilla Firefox, one of the top three web browser apps utilized on desktop machines, the Safe Browsing service is secretly disabled due to two Adware threats, Mintcast 3.0.1 and Shell&Services. The adware threats are secretly disabling the Safe Browsing in Firefox so they may deliver and display unsolicited ads and sometimes malware.

As a result of the Safe Browsing service being disabled on Firefox, users of the web browser program may be free to load sites that are known to be malicious and could put an affected computer in danger of a malicious infection. What the malicious adware threats are doing to Firefox web browsers is abusing the user.js file settings for browser reboot persistence. Fundamentally, this means that the feature that allows Firefox users to create a user.js file where they can store different types of browser settings is being abused.

The abuse done to the user.js file takes place upon the installation of Mintcast or Shell&Services Adware threats, which commonly root from the install of freeware applications or spam email attachments. The persistence of Mintcast or Shell&Services Adware threats is nearly relentless as it will create a user.js file if one has not been setup by the user. Upon creating the file, the adware threats will inject lines of code that tell the Firefox browser to shut down the Safe Browsing service when browsing sites and downloading files from the internet.

Another aspect of Mintcast or Shell&Services adware that is discerning is its ability to cause redirects to purposely load malicious sites, which later leads to the installation of malware that can perform many unknown functions that may compromise an infected computer.

Currently, computer users may take the necessary actions and precautions to remove Mintcast and Shell&Services adware threats, which will restore the Safe Browser service once the user.js settings are returned to its default settings.