Help! Some how I've lost all my bookmarks. My husband said something popped up and he click something. There is also a new blank bar between the address bar and the tool bar. We also lost all of the history. Any ideas? I'd really like to get my bookmarks back. I am using firefox.

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Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

When that happened to me I did a search for files containing a line of text that I knew was in one of the bookmarks and it wasn't found. I never got them back. After eventually restoring most of them one by one I found the bookmarks.html file and now make a backup copy of it whenever I change my bookmarks.

My best guess is that yours are gone forever but maybe someone else here knows better.

You have almost definitely contracted some spyware.

Start by downloading Spybot. Follow the installation instructions to update and immunize your computer, then have it check your system.

Do you have an antivirus scanner, and is it up to date?

When the infection is dealt with, we can work on getting the bookmarks back. (Pressing ctrl-b in Firefox will pop up a bookmarks sidebar. If that doesn't work, you can try to locate the physical file by searching for "bookmark" and including hidden or system files. As Chuck mentioned, making a copy is a good idea.)

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www.pageatatime.com - Art, Evolution, Painfully Slow Development.

I ran my virus scanner immediately. I'll run spybot now. I'll be back. Thanks.

__________________
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

I've found my bookmarks in a hidden folder. Thanks for your help. There were six programs removed by spybot. Now I've still got that blank bar.

__________________
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

it's probably a "downloadable toolbar" gone wrong--with a bug keeping things for displaying. There's probalby a menu option in (what, Internet Explorer? whatever you use) to remove that toolbar--or try right-clicking on it and see if you get a menu for it.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

In Firefox, you can right click on the toolbar area to get a menu that lets you select which toolbars show. You may be able to turn it off there.

Also check under tools / add ons and look for anything that doesn't seem to belong there. Items whose names smack of advertising or marketing are particularly suspect (i.e., "hotdealbar" or "savingssearch" or suchlike).

And, it goes without saying, don't accidentally click on popups in the future. %?)

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www.pageatatime.com - Art, Evolution, Painfully Slow Development.