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When I click on a link, particularly an email address in a website, Firefox goes bizerk and opens hundreds of new tabs. I have to 'Force Quit' and reopen. Help!

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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When I click on a link, particularly an email address in a website, Firefox goes bizerk and opens hundreds of new tabs. I have to 'Force Quit' and reopen. This has happened on a variety of unrelated websites that are not legit. At first, I thought the websites were corrupted. Now I think it must be Firefox that's been compromised. Help!

When I click on a link, particularly an email address in a website, Firefox goes bizerk and opens hundreds of new tabs. I have to 'Force Quit' and reopen. This has happened on a variety of unrelated websites that are not legit. At first, I thought the websites were corrupted. Now I think it must be Firefox that's been compromised. Help!

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This happens if you have set Firefox as the default handler for email addresses.

Check the Mailto application in Firefox > Preferences > Applications Make sure it isn't set to the Firefox application because Firefox can't handle the mailto protocol internally and you will get tabs opening endlessly.

You can rename/remove the mimeTypes.rdf file in the Firefox profile folder to reset all file actions.

You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.