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Does PC NEED porn sponsorship?

Discussion in 'PriusChat Website Questions' started by Jack 06, Nov 8, 2005.

  1. Jack 06

    Jack 06 New Member

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    I gave myself a crash tutorial in spyware via Yahoo. I thought anti-spyware was already installed as part of a suite I downloaded (anti-virus, pop-up blocker, parental controls)---but apparently it wasn't.

    After installing and running a scan, I had two spyware programs, six adware and two "browser helpers" (never heard of those before). I deleted the spyware. One of the adwares, disappointingly, is from LimeWire, which came with a music download program I PAY for (not Kazaa, which I'm well aware of). Another is from something called "ABetterInternet".

    Anyway, my "adult" ads disappeared.

    Thanks to all who responded. Sorry for my messed-up machine.

    I don't know anything about Firefox, though I've heard of it. If anyone familiar with it wants to PM me and tell me more, I'd be glad to try it if it's less vulnerable to this kind of crap. Or have I shut out the problem anyway with my Yahoo anti-spyware?
     
  2. Wayne

    Wayne Active Member

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    Glad to hear you got it fixed! Hey, if you hadn't posted, you would have never known it wasn't PC sending you the ads. And, I'm sure more people will be aware of things like this in the future. I see your post as positive! :)
     
  3. tripp

    tripp Which it's a 'ybrid, ain't it?

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    Bloody Adware/Spyware. Insidious. Firefox is a great browser and because it's not so "integrated" with the OS like IE is the number of ways that it can be exploited for the purposes of evil are far less. Since IE is the BMOC in the browser world there are a lot of people who like to exploit it. Microsoft is surprisingly lax on their security. If you take a look at the descriptions to the bug fixes in their patches it's frightening what malicious users can do if they're savy. It's for this reason that you might want to avoid outlook/outlook express. There are so many exploits via email it's crazy. It sounds like you use yahoo! so for the most part you should be protected from the myriad of lame worms and such.

    you can download Firefox here:

    http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
     
  4. aka007ii

    aka007ii New Member

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    Nobody ever listenes to me but I'm glad you found out on your own. Good thing it was an easy fix. Like I said earlier, I've spent days trying to get rid of adware in the past and is sux hard.
     
  5. fshagan

    fshagan Senior Member

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    I use Ad-Aware (the free version), SpyBot Search and Destroy and the Microsoft Anti Spyware program ... they each catch things the others don't. I had a heck of a time cleaning my mother's computer of an adware/scumware program ... none of the tools would do it, so I had to follow a pretty complicated series of steps to manually edit the registry, etc.
     
  6. Bill Merchant

    Bill Merchant absit invidia

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    This is a good topic and a reasonable reason to ask Danny what ads he is allowing on PriusChat. I say that because the Links & Offers box on the left is clearly authorized, though you can minimize it to a heading.

    I also see Google related ads between the first and second post in a thread, usually related to the thread "topic", which can be funny. I remember one thread where people were talking about "pigs", I think, and the ads were for pork products.

    Danny, how much adware are you getting from Google?

    Inquiring minds want to know.
     
  7. mikepaul

    mikepaul Senior Member

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    We had an outbreak of the HTML-modifying spyware stuff at work. Between Microsoft's anti-spyware and Spybot, it hasn't come back.

    Although, I can imagine people out there crafting spyware specifically to get past Microsoft's, just because it will probably always be free...
     
  8. Jack 06

    Jack 06 New Member

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    Thanks, Wayne, tripp and fshagan. Man, how embarrassing. :unsure: :eek:

    Bill Merchant! (That's all---just "Bill Merchant")
     
  9. Wayne

    Wayne Active Member

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    You forgot aka007ii. He really is invisible! :rolleyes:
     
  10. Danny

    Danny Admin/Founder
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    As stated before, the only ads currently running on the site are Google Adsense ads, and as far as I know they do not accept any adult content for their contextual links. We do run ad units in the places you mentioned, but none of these should be describing anything sexual or pornographic.

    With the old site we were showing tribalfusion banner ads and I received a complaint about a "dating service" ad that was posted with a suggestive image in the banner. I immediately went into tribalfusion and had them block any ads coming from that domain.

    If this is indeed an issue with Google, I'd like to know so that I can investigate doing something about it, but from the sounds of it, it sounds like someone has figured out how to overlay GoogleAds with other ads via an adbot.
     
  11. disneydad

    disneydad Junior Member

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    has anyone asked Danny about this. i have not seen any comments here from him.


    So whats the word Danny , most of us here on PC have never seen any questionable ad's here. and would never expect to. are these valid sponsers?
     
  12. Danny

    Danny Admin/Founder
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    Whoops, I replied without seeing the 2nd page :)
     
  13. disneydad

    disneydad Junior Member

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    oh man Danny hit with his reply at the same time i was sending my question.......

    thanks for the fast answer Danny. :lol:
     
  14. Jack 06

    Jack 06 New Member

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    Oops, thanks aka007ii (and Wayne). Didn't mean to overlook you. I scrolled right over your post a while ago when I was reminding myself who had said what---and forgot your helpful post yesterday, too. :rolleyes:

    Ironically enough, you also commented that "no one ever listens". At 64, I hear that loud and clear.

    I still don't understand exactly how all this stuff works---"overlaying" Google ads? Sounds pretty sophisticated. All of this strikes me as yet another example of how 2% or 5% of any given population can ruin things for the vast majority, wasting their time, money and energy---inviting (forcing in some cases) legislation---and expensive enforcement efforts---
     
  15. DanMan32

    DanMan32 Senior Member

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    Yup, if you see any questionable ads, I can attest to the fact that Danny will indeed look into it with sincere interest to rectify, so let him know.

    I don't like spybot anymore. Sure, it finds the stuff, but it often can't remove them. And it is too strict on the registry protection. Programs naturally write to the registry when configuration changes are made, and Spybot keeps popping up every single time. Makes SW installations cumbersome.
    MS Antispyware is quite good. Many fully packaged internet security packages (Trend for example) take care of spyware now.

    We will always have a battle with programs that feature the ability to have hooks to enhance their functionality, and programs that make legit uses of those hooks versus programs that make nuisance or dangerous hooks. There's always a tradeoff.
     
  16. Maytrix

    Maytrix Member

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    I'm all for trying out different apps, but people don't need to run from IE as if it's the plague. Like anything - just keep your system up to date, have virus protection, pop up blocker... and you should be fine.
     
  17. aka007ii

    aka007ii New Member

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    Cool ;)
     
  18. DanMan32

    DanMan32 Senior Member

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    I just wish there were clear explanations on how to remove helpers, menus and such that tie into IE.
     
  19. The Ericsons

    The Ericsons New Member

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    Dear Jack,

    I have all popups blocked through my IE in Windows XP on my new Dell laptop. I never get popups on any website. To check it out, I enabled popups on PriusChat a few minutes ago, and still haven't received one. There is no porno junk at all.

    I have "Ad-AwareSe personal" on this machine and both "Ad-AwareSe personal" and "Spybot" on the desktop (a six-year old Gateway) and have never had any problems with them ridding the machines of spyware (that I know of anyway), nor have I ever had a virus on either machine, using Norton on both.

    We used to get a lot of porno email when we were using Hotmail several years ago. Since dropping it and getting Yahoo, we have had zero porno infiltration.

    As you said, there are a lot of women on PriusChat (I'm one....67 yrs. old) and am thankful that there has been nothing offensive coming in.

    Good luck!
     
  20. bookrats

    bookrats New Member

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    BTW, there are a couple of good Firefox discussions on PriusChat over the last year, under the Fred's House of Pancakes forum.

    I'm a big Firefox proponent -- I run it on my Linux, Windows and Mac computers as my primary browser.