Bing search; remove protectedio https://www.bing.com/search?q=protectedio&pc=MOZI

Further information can be found in the Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware article.

Run most or all of the listed malware scanners. Each works differently. If one program misses something, another may pick it up.

I got some help from a techie and found a few protectedio items buried deep within INTERNET EXPLORER that I've now deleted. I suppose it's possible that protectedio was sitting in IE and also affecting Firefox. I'll know in a day or so I suppose.

FredMcD said

Run most or all of the listed malware scanners. Each works differently. If one program misses something, another may pick it up.

FredMcD, I'm guessing you are using some kind of auto-responder (as both your replies appeared almost instantaneously), but I came here for real help. Not saying your replies are wrong, but their lack of direct responsiveness to the original post makes me wonder who you are and whether you are even answering posts directly. Just sayin'. If I'm wrong I apologize, but it just seems very superficial.

You were having issues with malware. I gave you the link to a list of free scanners. I also said to use most or all because each scanner works differently.

I appreciate your responses. I ran two different malware programs and protectedio continued to come back. It appears to be gone now, after I did what my friend suggested and removed things (found via a system search within IE) that neither malware program found.

I think what I found disconcerting was that a search of the Mozilla site pages found not one single specific article naming protectedio when a Google search found pages and pages of non-Mozilla material specifically written to help get rid of it in Firefox. All named Firefox as an infected search engine. I tried several of their suggestions and nothing had a permanent effect.

So protecetedio is back again. Beside changing the default search engine to itself it also disables the SEARCH tab in Firefox's Tools>Options menu so you can't change the search engine preferences. Thant's all it seems to do so far, but it's a concern.

MalwareBytes keeps finding incidences of protectedio to delete, and a restart then lets me re-set the search pref, but the next day it starts all over again. My tech cousin says Vipre is a better solution but so far I haven't been able to get the free trial version to download.

I guess I don't understand how Mozilla works as I'd think there'd be something more specific here on this.