This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

hacked???

more options

sometimes (not always) when i open firefox, the search bar at the top will be red with gray lines running through it. And over in the left hand corner where the lock is will be a robot that says "dev tools". Is this normal and should i be concerned that i have been hacked

sometimes (not always) when i open firefox, the search bar at the top will be red with gray lines running through it. And over in the left hand corner where the lock is will be a robot that says "dev tools". Is this normal and should i be concerned that i have been hacked

All Replies (2)

more options

No, that is not normal. It can indicate that external software is manipulating Firefox.

First, this post on Reddit describes how/where to check within Firefox and the shortcut you use to start it: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/q4rp07/remove_the_remote_control_robot_with_red_and_grey/hg0q1as/

Second, I suggest using one or more of the malware cleaning programs listed in the support article (all free or free trial): Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware.

Can you get Firefox back to normal?

more options

achievementhunter12 said

And over in the left hand corner where the lock is will be a robot that says "dev tools".

Seeing DevTools as the "tool tip" for the robot icon can refer to a command-line parameter in your Firefox shortcut. While a normal Firefox command line (Properties > Shortcut > Target) looks like this:

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"

Yours might be modified to this:

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"  --start-debugger-server

You can remove that.