429712 - Adware/Malware -- advertisements being switched out when using firefox

Status: VERIFIED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Mitchell Kamarck]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.14) Gecko/20080404 Firefox/2.0.0.14
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.14) Gecko/20080404 Firefox/2.0.0.14

I am in a position to know what advertisements are supposed to run on a particular website.  Using my Firefox browser, I received one set of advertisements (predominately Lane Bryant advertisements, don't laugh) and using my IE browser, I received the appropriate advertisements. (Yes, I know I could stop seeing all advertisements, but that is not the point).  I am not an IT person but we cannot detect how someone has taken over the advertising stream on my Firefox browser (though someone clearly has done so).  Are there known cases and solutions for this issue.  

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Visit a particular website where I can verify what advertisements are approved to run on the site.
2.  See unapproved advertisements on the site.
3.



Please feel free to contact me directly through my e-mail address if someone needs more information.

Comment 1

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

:-) If your diagnosis is correct, the only thing I could imagine is that an extension is to blame. What extensions do you have installed?

The other possibility is that the advertising network sniffs the browser's user agent and serves different ads. You can check by installing the user agent switcher extension and visiting the site with Firefox spoofed as IE.

Without knowing the web site or more details it is difficult to diagnose more. If you want to send me the details including url of the site, send them to this bugmail address.

Comment 2

[chris hofmann]

I'm going to resolve this as incomplete.  reopen with more detail if that is wrong.