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Has Merriam-Webster site been compromised?

  • 3 replies
  • 0 have this problem
  • 15 views
  • Last reply by zeroknight

Joseph Erhardt
Joseph Erhardt
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I'm running the latest FF under Win7. Seems that whenever I go to the Merriam-Webster (dot) com site, after a few seconds, my disk activity light goes solid, and the FF CPU usage spike to 10-25%. One time, to regain control of my system (because everything seemed hung) I actually had to resort to the physical power-down switch. Obviously I immediately ran a virus scan upon coming back up (scan showed all okay). Now, if I stay away from Merriam-Webster, FF behaves normally. But it's a damned dictionary site. I occasionally will need to use it or stumble into it. I've used MW in the past without problems. Does anyone know what's going on?

I'm running the latest FF under Win7. Seems that whenever I go to the Merriam-Webster (dot) com site, after a few seconds, my disk activity light goes solid, and the FF CPU usage spike to 10-25%. One time, to regain control of my system (because everything seemed hung) I actually had to resort to the physical power-down switch. Obviously I immediately ran a virus scan upon coming back up (scan showed all okay). Now, if I stay away from Merriam-Webster, FF behaves normally. But it's a damned dictionary site. I occasionally will need to use it or stumble into it. I've used MW in the past without problems. Does anyone know what's going on?

All Replies (3)

jonzn4SUSE
jonzn4SUSE
  • Top 10 Contributor
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I have no issue with the site. see screenshot What security software are you running? Do you have the same issue with the site while Firefox is in Safe Mode? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/diagnose-firefox-issues-using-troubleshoot-mode#w_how-to-start-firefox-in-4troubleshoot-modesf5safe-modesf

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Boot the computer in Windows Safe mode with network support to see if that has effect in case security software is causing problems.

zeroknight
zeroknight
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The site has a lot of ads which consume most of the resources. Does it still happen with uBlock Origin installed?