I have two problems that have now collided and compounded, that I would like to request assistance with:
1) Someone has tried to steal my email passwords.
2) My email accounts have now been rendered unusable.
The problem here is that I seem to be able to solve one problem or the other, but not both.
I had always continued to use an older version of firefox (version 13). I absolutely HATE the newer version! The old version allows you to keep everything open, and clear the cookies before opening another tab and doing something else on a different website (tools > options gives you the ability to do this in a little popup box). The newer versions have the options in another browser tab instead of a popup box, and clearing the cookies does not actually work! For instance, in the old version, you can log in here on RPF, clear the cookies and reload the page, and you are no longer signed in. In the new version, if you do the same thing, you still remain logged in, which means the cookies are NOT being cleared! It's a royal PITA to have to completely close out firefox and run ccleaner in order to actually clear out the cookies before going to another website, especially if you want information from the previous website to remain open in another tab.
I had installed a larger hard drive last year, and forgot to turn the automatic updates off in firefox, so I had been living with the newer version throughout the last year. A few months ago, someone had gained physical access to my computer, and did something that leads me to believe that they attempted to steal my email passwords. My settings in firefox were to "not allow tracking", "never remember history", and not to save passwords. Upon closing firefox and running ccleaner to clear the cookies, the only thing that was there to clear out (the only thing that got cleared) from firefox was the cookies. After the incident where someone gained physical access to my computer, suddenly upon running ccleaner, I discovered that firefox was saving passwords and form information, even though my settings hadn't changed (good thing I hadn't logged into any email accounts before I discovered this!). What I suspect happened was that someone set up a "sync account", and attempted to use it to steal my passwords and gain access to my email. I didn't have time to mess with it further, so I went back to running my old hard drive with the old version of firefox, and just used the new hard drive as extra storage space for the last couple months. All was well and good, and was getting me by until I could fix firefox on the new hard drive.
So I was back to using the older hard drive, with the older version of firefox, until I could find the time to mess with fixing it on the newer hard drive. Then email.com "broke" my email accounts when using the older version of firefox! First they implemented a nag screen, telling me that they no longer supported the old version of firefox, and making you click "log in anyways" before letting my into my email. It still worked just fine. Then they "broke" it, only letting you use a mobile phone version of the site, which took away a lot of the functionality and it became a PITA to use. Yesterday, they broke it completely, and it stopped working entirely. Now it won't let me in with the old version of firefox at all, and I get an error screen telling me that cookies are not enabled, even though cookies ARE enabled. Clicking the link to the "help" page that is given on the error screen, it tells me that "remember history" is supposed to be enabled as well. Changing this setting in firefox and trying again had no effect (even if I close out firefox, run ccleaner, then reopen firefox). The limited functionality mobile version still worked just fine, when logged into from my phone (which is now the only way I can get into my email, which is unacceptable).
So here's what I've done to attempt to solve the problem:
I first looked at trying to edit the user agent strings and make email.com think that I was using the newer version of firefox, but there wasn't anything obvious that indicated a version of firefox that I could just change (nothing that said "firefox ver 13.1.2" or whatever, that I could simply change the 13 to read 44).
Then I went to the new hard drive, uninstalled firefox (using add / remove programs in control panel), and reinstalled it (the old version). It was still saving the form and password information, upon running ccleaner. So I uninstalled it again, went back into the application data folder, and discovered another firefox folder, which I deleted. Reinstalled it again, and now it was not saving the form and password information. I then tried the "user agent switcher" addon, and it didn't work. According to the addon, it was successful, but I still couldn't get into my email, so email.com must be detecting the firefox version by some means other than the user agent string. So then I downloaded and applied the update for the newest version.
Now I was stuck with the new version of firefox again, but could still not get into my email. I changed the setting to "remember history", and tried it with an old email account that I don't use anymore. Finally, it worked again, just like it always originally did. I logged out of the email, "cleared" cookies in the tab (which doesn't actually clear them in the new version), and ran ccleaner again. Sure enough, firefox was saving form and password information again!
So now what? If firefox is saving form and password information, that information can be accessed remotely by someone else with the "sync", since the only apparent way to disable it is to not save the form and password information in the first place. The problem is now one of being able to get into my email again, but not allowing someone to steal my passwords via "sync". Is there a way to actually do it? Or do I have to change multiple email accounts over to another email service that won't demand that I use a specific version of firefox with every privacy option disabled? Help! Any advice on this matter, from anyone who understands the problem I'm describing, would be EXTREMELY appreciated!