Try Firefox Safe Mode to see if the problem goes away. Firefox Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode that temporarily turns off hardware acceleration, resets some settings, and disables add-ons (extensions and themes).

If Firefox is open, you can restart in Firefox Safe Mode from the Help menu:

• Click the menu button , click Help and select Restart with Add-ons Disabled.

If Firefox is not running, you can start Firefox in Safe Mode as follows:

• On Windows: Hold the Shift key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
• On Mac: Hold the option key while starting Firefox.
• On Linux: Quit Firefox, go to your Terminal and run firefox -safe-mode
  (you may need to specify the Firefox installation path e.g. /usr/lib/firefox)

When the Firefox Safe Mode window appears, select "Start in Safe Mode".

If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode, your problem is probably caused by an extension, theme, or hardware acceleration. Please follow the steps in the Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems article to find the cause.

To exit Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.

When you figure out what's causing your issues, please let us know. It might help others with the same problem.

Thank you Wesley. Turning off the Hardware Acceleration seems to have done the trick. I don't know why and I don't really care why as long as there are bright young fellows like you to help the "oldsters" like me.  :)

Glad I could help. Thanks for contacting Mozilla support.

I have the same problem and this does not work for me....Can anyone help ?

Not the right answer, only a temporary/dangerous band-aid. I believe from what I have been able to find is that malicious banner ads are being run on Kijiji. Real answer is to avoid using Kijiji until it is cleaned. They may be banner ads from a third party service as there are a few discussions I can find in Google about the same privacy-keep install popup appearing to visitors on a handful of other websites. i.e. what they may have in common with kijiji is they use the same third party ad service. Privacy-keep.com and the IP address of the server it is hosted on are flagged by a few security sites as having malicious downloads. For me, on some pages on Kijiji, I am seeing a one-second flash of horse boarding in Poland where a banner ad would be shown then just the empty space where an add should be. Then the popup about FF blocking an install. Coincidentally, the privacy-keep.com domain was reg'd just a few months ago in Poland.

I am trying to escalate to an appropriate person at Kijiji who will listen to me :( and not just send me a canned response to check MY computer for malware.

otttech said

where a banner ad would be shown then just the empty space where an add should be.

Seems to be Google ads.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/03/big-name-sites-hit-by-rash-of-malicious-ads-spreading-crypto-ransomware/

otttech said

Not the right answer, only a temporary/dangerous band-aid. I am trying to escalate to an appropriate person at Kijiji who will listen to me :( and not just send me a canned response to check MY computer for malware.

This is not a Kijiji problem (whatever Kijiji might be) there are HUNDREDS of different sites that have this problem. The vast majority of sites on the internet use banner ads and those ads are provided by other companies. Basically the site displaying the ads has no choice about what ads they display beyond a few broad categories (like "no adult material"). The companies that provide the ads are supposed to screen the ads they provide, but many of those companies do a very sloppy job - which is why you see banner ads that actually open a full browser window to try to trick users into downloading an "update" to common software like flash player.

The solution is not going to be achieved by asking one site or even one ad marketing company to stop having bad ads. The solution is to find a blocking solution that works without the cure being as bad as the disease.

The "solution" presented here -- turning off all add-ons -- is just plain stupid. As otttech identified it is dangerous. People are asking why their software keeps telling them it protected them, and the "solution" suggested here is that they should turn off the protection?!?!?!? Come on people!

The configuration of this privacy-keep.com nonsense is clumsy and stupid, but being protected by something bothersome is still better than not being protected. The real solution would be to make this privacy-keep.com thing work properly. First of all, it needs to tell the user WHAT it blocked, not just that it blocked the site from "asking" the user to install software -- especially since it is doing exactly what it said it blocked (asking me if it should allow the site to ask me to install software). It needs to tell me exactly what file was blocked and where it comes from. Next, it needs an option to "Always Block - for this site" so we can get the protection and be done with it -- instead of having the same stupid pop-up time after time after time after time continuously.

When I use Explorer its not happening...Its only when I use Mozilla

Hi rogitts, otttech, and n4aof:

Our common suggestion to test in Firefox's Safe Mode helps rule locally installed extensions as the source of "replacement ads" since such malware extensions need to be removed first. Clearly that is not your issue.

Firefox's default settings protect you from installation of unwanted extensions, but unfortunately there does not seem to a direct way to tell Firefox "do not nag me about this particular site's add-on ever again." Nor is there a built-in block for .xpi files from sites designated as untrusted by users. These would be nice for the future, but we have the problem now...

There are a range of extensions that might help, including ad blockers, site blockers, script blockers, and so forth. I'm not sure what to suggest at this point. Could someone give a URL of a page that is causing this problem, assuming it is repeatable?

I did all that safe mode stuff....Doesn't work

jscher2000 said

Could someone give a URL of a page that is causing this problem, assuming it is repeatable?

I doubt that the problem is consistently "repeatable" except at a blatantly malicious website. The problem certainly seems to be related to the ads that are hosted on many websites.

I was encountering the problem for about an hour today on several of the pch.com websites - all of which share the same ads, but I can't even guarantee which specific ads were triggering the problem because there are generally multiple ads on each page and I had three of their pages open in different tabs at the same time. After about an hour the problem stopped, which I attribute to just a change in which ads were in the rotation at that time.

Whatever this privacy-keep thing is, it does not give any indication of what it blocked or where the blocked software was coming from. Obviously this makes troubleshooting more difficult for both of us.

jscher2000 said

Our common suggestion to test in Firefox's Safe Mode helps rule locally installed extensions as the source of "replacement ads" since such malware extensions need to be removed first.

That is reasonable -- or rather it would have been reasonable if that were explained as part of a troubleshooting process being suggested. Instead it was presented here as a solution to the problem -- and you will note that several users accepted that as being a solution to their problem, because from their point of view, the problem was the constant pop-ups telling them privacy-keep had blocked the site from asking to install software. I doubt that anyone who accepted this "solution" realized that the reason they got rid of the pop-up notifications was because they had turned off the protection.

There is nothing "safe" about Firefox's misnamed "Safe Mode" -- quite the contrary -- it eliminates features that are designed to protect the user.

Without an explanation and advice for further troubleshooting, the suggestion to go to Safe Mode in this situation seems irresponsible.

n4aof said

The configuration of this privacy-keep .com nonsense is clumsy and stupid, but being protected by something bothersome is still better than not being protected. The real solution would be to make this privacy-keep .com thing work properly.

Only privacy-keep .com is NOT RELATED AT ALL to Firefox. What it is is a malicious website (which FF is protecting you from) behind the ads which are being served via Google Ads on many websites, as you pointed out. It is Google which needs to remove these malicious ads which are redirecting to the bad website privacy-keep .com. The FF warning comes up in a layer OVER the privacy-keep popup.

I have the same problem and tried all the mentioned remedies but none worked. What I found is that the problem only pops up when I am on one particular site. If I do not go into that site then the problems does not appear. In conclusion what I am saying is that my problem with privacy-keep.com only happens if I go one one site

AN UPDATE: Kijiji social media peeps (via twitter) took info from me,screenshots,etc and say the ads team is looking into it. Kijiji (owned by eBay) so should have some contact at Google to escalate this. I also placed a malware report with Google explaining it's one of their advertisers which has gone rogue.

suntandan said

I have the same problem and tried all the mentioned remedies but none worked. What I found is that the problem only pops up when I am on one particular site. If I do not go into that site then the problems does not appear. In conclusion what I am saying is that my problem with privacy-keep.com only happens if I go one one site

That website may like to be made aware that the Google ads it's running has one or more malicious ads in its run currently. They may wish to disable their Google Ads for a bit to help protect their visitors.

n4aof said

Whatever this privacy-keep thing is, it does not give any indication of what it blocked or where the blocked software was coming from. Obviously this makes troubleshooting more difficult for both of us.

It's a little complicated because a page on privacy-keep.com is triggering the installation request -- that is the site that Firefox displays on the panel -- but the actual .xpi file could then be loaded from a different site. The actual address of the, let's call it malware, is difficult to learn without giving permission, which seems like a very bad idea.

The address of the page on privacy-keep.com might be logged in Firefox's Browser Console (Windows: Ctrl+Shift+j). Unlike page history, this isn't stored anywhere, so if you don't have the console open at the time the request comes up, you wouldn't be able to reconstruct the source address.

Actually, the page might be cached: you could type/paste about:cache in the address bar and press Enter, then click the link for the disk cache and (after a potentially long pause while Firefox grinds out the page) use Find (Ctrl+f) to look for privacy-keep.com to see whether there's a URL there.

Regarding the selected solution, the person who starts a thread is the one who chooses the solution. We encourage other users with the same or similar problems to start new threads. But we are where we are...

I ran a scan with this anti malware program and it took care of it http://anti-malware.gridinsoft.com/

Hope it helps someone

Kijiji has reported the advertiser has been banned. Indeed, I am no longer seeing only those horse boarding ads.

Al of the usual big name ads (Via Rail, Tim Horton, Hyundai,....) are back and rotating correctly, and no more alerts from Firefox or tiny popup windows from that rogue website!