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Firefox (79) for macOS keeps launching on its own

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  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by soundsgood

soundsgood
soundsgood
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I'm on a Mac, and Safari is my default browser. But for a few years, I've used Firefox several times a week as needed. When I'm not using Firefox, I typically quit it.

For the last 2-3 days, Firefox has started launching spontaneously. I'll be doing something else on my computer, and suddenly Firefox appears in my dock (but it doesn't come to the forefront). The first time I saw this, I quit it immediately, but it immediately restarted. After 3 or 4 tries, it stayed quit. But a few hours later, it launched spontaneously again, and this has now happened half a dozen times.

I've run two anti-malware scans (by two, different developers), and both came up squeaky clean. I do have Firefox set to auto-update, but I've never seen this behavior before. In the past, updates were performed in the background, then when I launched Firefox, I'd be notified that it had been updated.

This auto-launch behavior is disturbing. Does anyone have any idea what's going on?

I'm running macOS Catalina 10.15.6.

I'm on a Mac, and Safari is my default browser. But for a few years, I've used Firefox several times a week as needed. When I'm not using Firefox, I typically quit it. For the last 2-3 days, Firefox has started launching spontaneously. I'll be doing something else on my computer, and suddenly Firefox appears in my dock (but it doesn't come to the forefront). The first time I saw this, I quit it immediately, but it immediately restarted. After 3 or 4 tries, it stayed quit. But a few hours later, it launched spontaneously again, and this has now happened half a dozen times. I've run two anti-malware scans (by two, different developers), and both came up squeaky clean. I do have Firefox set to auto-update, but I've never seen this behavior before. In the past, updates were performed in the background, then when I launched Firefox, I'd be notified that it had been updated. This auto-launch behavior is disturbing. Does anyone have any idea what's going on? I'm running macOS Catalina 10.15.6.

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soundsgood
soundsgood Question owner
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(NOTE: I attempted to enable the "Share data" option, but as I view my post, I don't see any indication that it worked. If there's a way to add that info after the fact, and if it would be helpful, let me know, and I'll be happy to add it.)