Norton Anti-Virus Wiped Out All My Firefox Bookmarks And More

[hvn_nbr_2]

I was trying to renew my Norton Systemworks and Norton Anti-Virus protection this morning, and the first screen that appeared asked me if I wanted to import bookmarks from: a) Internet Explorer, or b) not at all. And a) was pre-selected as the default choice. Norton seemed to be unaware that Firefox even existed on my computer.

Well, I had no idea why Anti-Virus wanted bookmarks but I figured that if it wants some, I'll let it have them from wherever it wants, and I left the default selected. Generally, default choices seem best unless I have some specific knowledge otherwise or know enough to want to customize.

Never in my wildest, craziest, most psychotic or hallucinatory dreams could I ever have imagined that "import to Norton Anti-Virus" really meant "export to Firefox." They wiped out hundreds of bookmarks collected over years and years and copied from one computer to another, and updated constantly. Poof, they're all gone in an instant. It also appears to have wiped out other Firefox stuff too, returning it to something resembling its just-installed condition.

I am so seething angry at Symantec right now that I could spit barbed wire. If I can't get my bookmarks back, I guess I'll be stopping at Fry's tonight to buy McAfee.

Anyone have any good ideas if and how it's possible to recover them? There doesn't appear to be anything in the recycle bin.

[Jersey Devil]

1. Doesn't sound right

Firefox asks if you want to import bookmarks from IE when you install Firefox but Norton AV & Systemworks doesn't have any functions for the import of bookmarks. I've been using Norton for years and never encountered anything whatsoever regarding bookmarks.

It is possible that in a virus scan that Norton found viruses in your bookmark folder and moved the folder to quarantine. Check NAV to see the results of your most recent scans and see if anything is in quarantine.

Then check in the Firefox folders to see if your bookmarks are still there though no longer showing when you open Firefox. It's a good bet they are because when you delete Firefox and reinstall it (which I have done) they are always left behind. If so, you can get them back into Firefox pretty easily by just copying and pasting them into your bookmarks folder.

[RoyGBiv]

7. Bookmarks and Firefox ...

Just for clarification, bookmarks in Firefox are nothing but an "html" file, i.e. there is no bookmarks folder. This file is kept in a profile folder, which is not automatically deleted when Firefox is uninstalled and prevents you from having to recreate everything from scratch if you find the need to do so.

What may have happened, and what fits with your description above, is that Norton may have found a virus or what it thought was a virus in the Firefox cache, which is a subdirectory in the profile folder, and quaranteened or deleted it. This is rather sloppy behavior (why would it delete the folder with the problem and its parents up to a certain point as well?) but certainly possible.

[hvn_nbr_2]

8. Holy smokes! And thank you very much.

I never knew that Firefox bookmarks were just in an html file. So I went poking around in "Documents and Settings" and found a bookmarks.html file with all my bookmarks, even the ones I made just last night! Now to figure out why they don't show up in the Bookmarks menu list??? There are various profiles and bookmarks.html files here and there under "Documents and settings" but so far I haven't found one that matches what I get in the bookmarks menu.

Needless to say, I made a couple copies of that file and put them in a couple different places. In the process of looking around, before I found that one, I found a "Favorites" directory that had an old set of bookmarks that would have been useful for a starting point to reconstruct everything; they must be leftover from when I switched from Internet Explorer.

[ConsAreLiars]

9. Read this section from the Firefox help FAQ

to see where your bookmarks and other data are kept. It may help you find the lost data and/or put the bookmarks.html file you found back where Firefox will find it.
http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/edit#profile

[RoyGBiv]

11. Profiles ...

From what you say here, it seems you have more than one profile created and may not have realized it, although how that happened I couldn't guess.

Firefox defaults to loading from the profile called default.<something>. Put the bookmarks.html you want to use in there, load Firefox, and see if it's loading that bookmarks file. If not, it's loading one from a different profile.

You can start Firefox with the profile manager appearing first by (after closing all Firefox windows) clicking on START > RUN and typing

firefox.exe -profilemanager

in the field provided and clicking OK.

Doing this will let you see and choose from all the profiles you have created.

You surmised correctly about the "Favorites" directory. That's where Windows stores bookmarks.

[hvn_nbr_2]

12. Profiles, and good news

First, the good news. I rebooted and my bookmarks are back! So the rest of this is just geek commentary.

I have four "users" in Documents and Settings, but three are generic standards: administrator, all users, and default user. I also have one "real" user, my own name. I vaguely recall that the first time I started this computer (with Windows XP pre-installed), it seemed to want me to create a user, so I did. I guess I set that user to not use a password because I never login, and it always comes up with that user active. (I can't right now find the way to determine who's logged in, but I once did. Something roughly like "whoami" in Unix.)

Anyway, my "real" user is the only one that has a Firefox profile in it. So it must have switched to one of the generic users for some reason and been using some standard default set of bookmarks that Firefox always uses. I notice that Symantec has a directory under "Application Data" for all four "users"; maybe its renewal process wanted to use one of the others and silently switched users on me.

[IronLionZion]

16. you can import that file into firefox with the "import bookmarks" feature

it's smart to save that file. I thought I had lost it myself, until I found out it was saved in that file bookmarks.htm.

[yy4me]

2. Horrible situation, but you seem to have the know-how to fix it.

Why, however, would you use a "pay for" anti-virus? You can pick up great free anti-virus programs at www.MajorGeeks.com. AVG, Avast, AntiVir and others are all highly rated. I use AVG with AdAware, Spybot S&D, SpywareBlaster. Obviously you use your computer a lot more than I, but free is free, and if its good enough for the experts, its OK for this beginner. Your story gives me nightmares.

[hvn_nbr_2]

3. Question about the free AV programs

I've always assumed that free ones may be fine software but they couldn't have the resources to keep virus definitions up-to-date and timely. Am I wrong about that? Is there some cooperative effort or something that they can keep up with all the latest threats?

[ThingsGottaChange]

4. Free is sometimes better!

I've been using AntiVir for years. I get auto-updates almost every day. I'm using a computer that had all the Norton stuff on it and I dumped it as soon as I could. Too much of a resource hog and not any better than AntiVir - IMO. Along with AntiVir, I regularly use Spybot, AdAware, CrapCleaner and RegSeeker. And, of course, Firefox!

[Berserker]

5. You are wrong

I have used free AVG for years and I have never had a virus. AVG updates everyday and is one of the top anti-virus programs and it's free.

[RoyGBiv]

6. You are wrong about that ...

The idea that for something to be worthwhile, it must cost money is a myth fostered by companies that want you to pay them. It comes very close to being a protection racket. Some part of the myth is based on the fact that a few of the free versions of various virus scanners prevent you from updating more than once per day. Others will only automatically updated once per day but allow you to manually do it whenever you want. Ironically, the default settings for a lot of pay softward only updates once per day as well.

I once had sitting around the results of a study on how quickly various databases reacted to news of a newly discovered virus, though after searching just now, I can't find it. Actually, it may have been a magazine article.

Anyway, McAfee was fairly highly ranked, but among the top five, all were free or had free versions.

And here's some irony for you that shows just how false this myth is on several levels. I run a Linux system. I have been compelled to pay for none of the software on my system, although I have donated money to several projects I want to see further development. I also run a virus scanner called Clamav that costs me nothing. That virus scanner is among the top five I mentioned, #2 if I recall correctly.

[yy4me]

10. Most anti-virus (or maybe all) programs allow you to manually

update or you can schedule an automatic update. Either way, it only takes a minute. I prefer to do it myself, just part of my morning routine.

[hvn_nbr_2]

13. My question really isn't how often I can update from their data

My question isn't really how often I can update from their virus definition data. My question is how well they can keep their virus definition data up-to-date, without 24/7 paid staff to do so.

But regardless, I'm going to check out the free ones that people have mentioned, and probably start using one.

[RoyGBiv]

14. FWIW ...

What I mentioned in a previous message regarding the study of various virus-checker companies and how fast their databases reacted was actually an answer to this question. And this is truly the more important question with this sort of thing.

I remember now that the study was in a Linux journal I had, but I apparently sent that issue off to the recyle bin. I don't remember the order of things, just that Norton was pretty low on the list. McAfee, as mentioned, was the best performer for "pay only" companies. Bitdefender, AVG, and Clamav were, if I recall, the best performers overall. (I can't remember if AntiVir was in there.) The first two have free, Windows based versions that use the same database for updates that the commercial versions use.

[hvn_nbr_2]

15. That earlier post of yours was why I'm probably going to get a free one.

I just never got around to responding to that, and actually had forgotten what brought me around to looking more closely at the free ones. It's been a hectic last few days.

Thanks for your help (and to a few other people too) on this thread.

[unhappycamper]

17. I'd advise against McAfee. I've had it on two computers & it's a POS.

IMHO, both the product and the support sucks.

Switched to AVG (a freebie) a few months ago for both of my PCs & am very happy. So much so, I sent them money for registered versions. Freebie AVG download at bottom of this link.