Hi, I'm afraid this sounds like malware installed on your computer.

You can try these free programs to scan for malware, which work with your existing antivirus software:

• Microsoft Safety Scanner
• MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware
• Anti-Rootkit Utility - TDSSKiller
• AdwCleaner (for more info, see this alternate AdwCleaner download page)
• Hitman Pro
• ESET Online Scanner

Microsoft Security Essentials is a good permanent antivirus for Windows 7/Vista/XP if you don't already have one. Windows 8 has antivirus built-in already.

Further information can be found in the Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware article.

Did this fix your problems? Please report back to us!

HI Scribe I have not tried recommended fix yet because situation has changed. Each time the box showed up I blocked and deleted it in flash manager. The request for location did not pop up since early this morning. What is happening now is that l.yimg.com is requesting permission to store info on computer. Request 10kb- currently 0 kb. Then it asks allow or deny. This shows up on all yahoo video. It does not pop up while browsing unless for video. I should also mention that this request is a small box within a larger video. My surfing experience appears normal so I am still concerned but not as much as when computer was more or less freezing.

I am currently using norton 360 anti virus. it did not pick up anything on a quick scan. There are 5 or 6 other programs that get stored in flash in addition to yimg. I block and remove them all. they come back after goiing online for a few minutes. Yimg from what I have read is a yahoo program and I think that it might also be associated with mozilla firefox. What do you think?

Just ran msft safety scanner picked up nothing. OK more findings since last message.

I checked ask before storing info on computer in control panel. Strangely it appears that yimg doesn't even bother to ask to share location anymore. So browsing is has returned to normal. See what happens when I open computer tomorrow morning.

The problem now is that I can not watch yahoo video unless I allow info to be stored on computer as described in last post. I don't want to do that in fear that storing info may either compromise security or cause other problems.

You tube video plays fine while yahoo video won't play at all.

Unbelievable that yahoo would cause this trouble. I wonder why everybody that runs mozilla firefox does not have same yimg trouble? I am beginning to think that everything returns to normal if I allow yimg to collect info.

There are types of malware that misuse l.yimg.com/ - but that domain is also used by Yahoo for content delivery for Yahoo services and for many other websites that pay yimg.com for hosting.

Off the top of my head, I suspect that you are blocking access to or not allowing access to legitimate Yahoo resources - thus causing the problems you are describing. Please run the recommended anti-malware programs and see what comes up.

Yahoo! may be storing data in Flash cookies to track your viewing history, or something else. Who knows? No one likes to be tracked, but if you can't play videos without some data being stored, you can clear the saved data whenever you like using Adobe's website storage manager: http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html

Hi Edmeister Ran microsoft scan and malbytes to no avail. Also scoured the inet for answers and found that others with this problem have gone thru all the anti virus etc programs without success. I am skeptical about loading all these different anti programs that could potentially cause problems themselves.

Hi jscher

I understand that there are all kinds of tracking data going on every day on the inet and I really never cared all that much. Just a cost of doing business so to speak. The problem here seems that a malware outfit is in control and that their goal would be to gain personal data such as credit card info. Why they need my permission to do so is beyond me but that seems to be the case. If I grant them permission to store info then what might be next? Am I looking at that wrong?

Hi Neil12, I'm not sure there is evidence of criminal activity in this case. Perhaps you would benefit from more fine-grained control over Flash so that only media you actually want to run has access to local storage. You can combine a built-in feature and an add-on to do that.

(1) Set Flash to Click-to-Play ("Ask to Activate"). This will delay Flash from starting on a page until you approve it.

To set "Ask to Activate", open the Add-ons page using either:

• Ctrl+Shift+a
• "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons

In the left column, click Plugins. Look for "Shockwave Flash" and change "Always Activate" to "Ask to Activate".

When you visit a site that wants to use the Flash, you should see a notification icon in the address bar and one of the following: a link in a black rectangle in the page or an infobar sliding down between the toolbar area and the page.

If you don't see media you actively want to play, ignore the notification.

(2) Gain control of which media in a page can play. The built-in feature is "all or nothing" so you need an extension to have fine-grained control (for example, play a video in the main content but not video ads on the side):

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/click-to-play-per-element/

hey J

I appreciate your help and time as well as the other contributors.

Right now I am trying to control this thing thru the control panel. I have checked-- ask me before allowing new sites to save info on this computer. There is nothing that can prevent the mimg program from flash mgr. In fact there are 11 others that appear as fast as I delete of block them. So the key seems to be a check at the ask me block.

So far it seems to have eliminated the pop up that requested sharing location. That was the one that created havoc on my computer. The subsequent problem is that yahoo video has a small box that appears in the the middle of the larger video that asks to allow storage. It is obviously more than annoying but the audio is not disturbed and the surrounding video can be seen. The video is not disturbed at all on most other sites including you tube.

I agree that there may be no malware involved but then again I am not willing to chance it so I will live with the yahoo video impairment as long as it doesn't affect computer performance like before.

So I guess I will leave it as is for now. Thanks again for your help. The only question that I have is do you think that I will pass on any virus type stuff to others when I email?

Neil12 asked

The only question that I have is do you think that I will pass on any virus type stuff to others when I email?

Hmm, there's really no way to tell based on the information in this thread. Do you send emails using Firefox, through your mail provider's website? In that case, it's unlikely that software outside of Firefox could tamper with the message. You would want to keep an eye on your extensions and make sure no unrecognized ones creep in. You can check that on the Add-ons page. Either:

• Ctrl+Shift+a
• "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons

In the left column, click Extensions. Then you can review what you have on the right side.