Firefox is the name of the web browser as it is Mozilla that makes Firefox.

This is not the usual somebody making some sites and they then eventually get taken down by Mozilla or blocked in Google safe browsing.

These sites are registered the day before, used for a day for these malicious fake update ads and then not seen again.

It has been sophisticated enough that it only seems to target Firefox users on Windows and not on Mac OSX or Linux. Makes sense when they were initially serving a firefox-patch.exe but it kept getting blocked or flagged and they switched to firefox-patch.js since.

Also made harder by fact that only the person who got the url could view it. Anybody researching this have to try and get this fake urgent Firefox update ad themselves.

The person or group behind this elaborate scam is even targeting Google Chrome users on Windows with a similar fake update page for same period. They are using many of the same disposable domains used for the fake urgent Firefox updates. One of many thread examples is https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/HcXgFFaO9WU

I have been hoping that since it has been impacting Chrome users also that maybe Google with their vast resources could get this whole malicious Ads thing dealt with and therefore help Firefox users also.

I know they must be trying, but I don't understand why the bad guys are always a step ahead of the good guys instead of the other way around. This pop-up comes through Firefox and mimics Firefox, so they should be the ones to fix it. Why don't they have a definitive popup blocker? Oh Right, because they want to be able to send you the ads that people actually pay for. They don't want to block those!

Hi   bobbiker,
As long as there are humans on this planet,   there will be bad guys,   unfortunately   (hence we have police,   army  etc.).
Being one step ahead of the bad guys:   if only it were that easy   ....
What you could do to try and stop these annoying fake updates:
http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/addon/ublock-origin/