1. Attachments are working again! Check out this thread for more details and to report any other bugs.

Sponsor Cookies

Discussion in 'PriusChat Website Questions' started by mboileau, Nov 24, 2004.

  1. mboileau

    mboileau New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 11, 2004
    278
    0
    0
    Location:
    SF Bay Area
    I've started to notice that when I log in to PriusChat, there are almost always two or three strange third-party advertisement/tracking type cookies that want to be installed on my machine. I have settings such that these are always prompted for, and I usually deny them. It doesn't seem to stop anything here from workng properly, but I'm concerned about this now happening, since it never did before. It appears to be tied to the sponsor banner adds you see on the homepage.

    Danny, is there anything we can do to prevent this, sanitize the sponsor ads, or disable their cookies? I get enough junk mail already....
     
    #1 mboileau, Nov 24, 2004
  2. techogurl

    techogurl New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 11, 2004
    226
    1
    0
    Location:
    Fayetteville, AR
    I'm not having that problem no matter what browser I use to access the site. You might have a spyware or virus program secretly installed on your machine. It wouldn't hurt to do a quick scan using something free like Adaware (spyware scanner) or HouseCall (virus scanner).
     
    #2 techogurl, Nov 29, 2004
  3. Danny

    Danny Admin/Founder
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    Nov 24, 2003
    7,093
    2,100
    1,174
    Location:
    Charlotte, NC
    Vehicle:
    2013 Prius Plug-in
    Model:
    Plug-in Base
    Mark, I wanted to let you know that I'm not ignoring your question, but I do want to do some research before I answer it.
     
    #3 Danny, Nov 29, 2004
  4. mboileau

    mboileau New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 11, 2004
    278
    0
    0
    Location:
    SF Bay Area
    Danny,

    I appreciate your looking into it. I run Ad-Aware and Spybot religiously every day. I'm also using Firefox as the browser. I have security setting cranked up pretty high.

    Just now, when loading the PriusChat web page, I got a prompt for a cookie to be loaded from "adserver.news.com.au" (2 attempts). I rejected them, and then Spybot resident monitor told me that the page was trying to load DoubleClick, which is something I get every time I access Yahoo!. This is all very repeatable and typically happens when loading the homepage with the animated banner ads.

    Mark
     
    #4 mboileau, Nov 29, 2004
  5. DaveinOlyWA

    DaveinOlyWA 3rd Time was Solariffic!!

    Joined:
    Apr 13, 2004
    15,140
    611
    0
    Location:
    South Puget Sound, WA
    Vehicle:
    2013 Nissan LEAF
    Model:
    Persona
    hmmm... i accept all cookies from this site and im not getting any spam, spyware, malware or viruses.

    i just checked my adaware log and other than one scan on oct 10, i have not had any spyware infections since may.

    can you elaborate on what it is that is trying to write a cookie???

    are you sure its just not Priuschats session cookie you are referring too?

    with out it, you can still browse here but it wont keep track of posts you have read, posts since last visit, etc. not the end of the world, but it is information that i rely on when i am navigating the site.
     
    #5 DaveinOlyWA, Nov 29, 2004
  6. Danny

    Danny Admin/Founder
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    Nov 24, 2003
    7,093
    2,100
    1,174
    Location:
    Charlotte, NC
    Vehicle:
    2013 Prius Plug-in
    Model:
    Plug-in Base
    Oh, I know what it is! Someone used the [web] tag when they posted an article the other day. This is causing you to see the cookies coming from that website. The only other cookies I could think of on PriusChat was from the blockbuster ad on the main page (which I'll be changing around pretty soon, I've just been testing a few things).

    I'll go into that thread and change the [web] tag to .
     
    #6 Danny, Nov 29, 2004
  7. mboileau

    mboileau New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 11, 2004
    278
    0
    0
    Location:
    SF Bay Area
    #7 mboileau, Nov 29, 2004
  8. DaveinOlyWA

    DaveinOlyWA 3rd Time was Solariffic!!

    Joined:
    Apr 13, 2004
    15,140
    611
    0
    Location:
    South Puget Sound, WA
    Vehicle:
    2013 Nissan LEAF
    Model:
    Persona
    ok Danny, what is a web tag and how would we recognize one if we saw it...
    (i dont want to be the one using it and screwing everyone up is why i ask)
     
    #8 DaveinOlyWA, Nov 29, 2004
  9. techogurl

    techogurl New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 11, 2004
    226
    1
    0
    Location:
    Fayetteville, AR
    On a slightly side note as I am not getting any extra popups nor notifications... you might want to do a quick scan for spyware using www.pestscan.com

    I use it in combination with Adaware and Spybot and have really clean systems for both work, customers, and myself.
     
    #9 techogurl, Nov 29, 2004
  10. daniel

    daniel Cat Lovers Against the Bomb

    Joined:
    Feb 25, 2004
    14,487
    1,518
    0
    Location:
    Spokane, WA
    Vehicle:
    2004 Prius
    I run ZoneAlarm and have it set to always reject third-party cookies. I am not aware of any legitimate use for them.
     
    #10 daniel, Dec 2, 2004
  11. Danny

    Danny Admin/Founder
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    Nov 24, 2003
    7,093
    2,100
    1,174
    Location:
    Charlotte, NC
    Vehicle:
    2013 Prius Plug-in
    Model:
    Plug-in Base
    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveinOlyWA\";p=\"53532)</div>
    When you post a message, the [web] function looks like this: [​IMG] and what it does is actually insert the webpage into your reply like this:

    [web:788046664c]http://priuschat.com/shop[/web:788046664c]

    It is kinda annoying and I'll see about just taking it out.
     
    #11 Danny, Dec 2, 2004
  12. DaveinOlyWA

    DaveinOlyWA 3rd Time was Solariffic!!

    Joined:
    Apr 13, 2004
    15,140
    611
    0
    Location:
    South Puget Sound, WA
    Vehicle:
    2013 Nissan LEAF
    Model:
    Persona
    ooooh i c....

    ok i believe it to be annoying also. a link is much better. for some of us that have limited bandwidth capabilities, it really increases the load time of the post.

    pics i dont mind waiting for because 98% of them i want to see anyways, but webpages are a different story. if someone is commenting on a website and they grab a screenshot highlighting the point of the post, that is fine, but no reason to send an entire page. that is just laziness to me. or maybe lack of knowledge in options.
     
    #12 DaveinOlyWA, Dec 2, 2004
(You must log in or sign up to post here.)