HE has grabbed file associations
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Not long after I installed HexEdit, my downloads have all been assigned to open with HexEdit. I try to change the "open with" option in Get Info dialog for the files but either it doesn't change or the file association will change but the file will not function as normal. For example, all .rar or similar zipped files become associated with HexEdit and will not open with Stuffit Expander, even if dropped into the Stuffit Expander window. "An error has occurred while expanding the file blahblah.rar (unspecified Stuffit Engine internal error)." After the error, a new folder called "blahblah.1.rar" appears but it is empty. Files downloaded previous to installing HexEdit have the Stuffit icon and will expand normally. The files acquire this problem whether downloaded with Firefox or Explorer. Also, same issue in another user. I have trashed HexEdit and the preference file for it. Same issue remains.
Now here's an odd twist: I booted to OS 9.1 and downloaded a file. It did not take on the HexEdit cusom icon. I downloaded a second file and that second file and all subsequent downloads took on the HexEdit icon. With the first file, Stuffit Expander could not unzip it and gave no error, just began the progress window and then the progress window closed. The second file gave the usual error message. This means the issue is not directly related to OS X. It is across two different operating systems and three different browsers installed on two different drive volumes.
My guess is that HexEdit has encoded something into the firmware or installed a trojan horse that can migrate to different drive volumes. I hope someone who also has this issue (and from my preliminary investigation, many people have the same issue) will help me to unearth the malicious entity and squash it like the bug it is.
You really think HexEdit re-wrote the machine's firmware or is actually a trojan? You need to learn about how Mac OS (both classic and X) handle file associations.
Before making such obviouly incorrect postings please do a little research in the future. For instance, there are dozens of posts with solutions to this problem via google (and a few in the forums for HexEdit right here on SF for that matter). Here is a FAQ on the issue:
https://www.ifd.com/faqdesk_info.php/faqPath/7/faqdesk_id/31