Strange URL in new tab

Question

New tabs are no longer displaying thumbnails, nor are they blank. It shows me this strange URL in the site bar:
http://www.[r;;iåvÞyevq¾qîx»òki.com/
No idea what this means, but might be related to this:
I recently had a run in with a malicious piece of software called bProtector. It was enabling some kind of "Search Protection" which prevented me from changing settings on Firefox. I managed to disable/delete most of the program, and aside from the above glitch, Firefox is working normally again. However, the folder and some similar files still remain on my computer. Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware programs seem to be ignoring it, and when I try to delete the folder, it says the files are open in another program.

Answer 1

Check if there is a SearchSettings.exe program running on your computer.
Try to reset some preferences to the default with the SearchReset extension:
*https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/searchreset/
Note that the SearchReset extension only runs once and then uninstalls automatically, so it won't show on the "Firefox > Add-ons" page (about:addons).
If you do not keep changes after a restart then see:
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Preferences_not_saved
Do a malware check with some malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.<br />
You need to scan with all programs because each program detects different malware.
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.
*Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:<br>http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
*SuperAntispyware:<br>http://www.superantispyware.com/
*Microsoft Safety Scanner:<br>http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx
*Windows Defender: Home Page:<br>http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx
*Spybot Search & Destroy:<br>http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
*Kasperky Free Security Scan:<br>http://www.kaspersky.com/security-scan
You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.
*http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/solutions?qid=208280684
See also:
*"Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked