Trojan carrying pop-up ads

[Sporku]

Well, I accidently visited DoomWorld's main website with Internet Explorer today, instead of FireFox, and ended up getting a trojan (along with a few other viruses) from a pop-up ad. I don't really think this is acceptible.

Down with UGO!

[Ultraviolet]

I think this gives a little relevance to my thread about my firewall complaining about an intrusion within the ASP as I visited Gamespy. I'll link, and we can just discuss it all in the same thread.

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23767

We'll try and keep just the on-topic parts that are relevant to this thread in focus, though. Don't wanna hijack ya'. :-P

I don't think I ever mentioned that I got that "overflow" intrusion from a Gamespy ad-page. Might clarify things a bit as to how my thread is related to this thread.

Seems ads are just getting more and more sneaky. Targetted advertising has been proven not to work very well against those who just aren't interested, so they're turning to more and more devious methods. Those fucking bastards...

[sargebaldy]

nice, i hope this kind of thing gets really widespread and people start realizing IE offers no security whatsoever.

[Alientank]

What browser do you guys recommend? I use IE right now.

[Ultraviolet]

IE has just been the best browser for me in terms of working fast and not hogging resources. I tried out Firebird for a while, but found that it was taking up to 30 seconds just to open a damn blank window for me to browse from. The features seemed cool enough, but I never used them because they just didn't fit my browsing style. If someone can offer a full-featured (but not excessive) browser that works well even on a low-end machine, I'll be quite happy.

Anyway, Baldy, I'm not sure that was a constructive post. I don't think the solution here should be something client-end, but the abolishment of targetted advertisement on the Internet. It ruins one of the world's best media for communication, giving nothing back to it. The Internet was never designed for that kind of overhead. Anybody wanna take a guess as to what the content-to-advertisement ratio on the WWW alone is? How about the useful communication to ad/spyware related bandwidth usage ratio on the Internet as a whole?

[gatewatcher]

Yes, I'm sure all these companies advertising on the internet will be more than happy to stop because it's for the greater good of the internet. Wake up, stop using IE or stop complaining about pop-ups, the two are hand-in-hand.

[Remilia Scarlet]

I love IE. And I never have popups or problems with trojans or anything like that. It's called the Google Toolbar. Switching browsers isn't necissarily the key, but smarter surfing and extra precautions.

And I have tried Firebird, Mozilla, Opera, and at least one other...don't like 'em.

[Fredrik]

Augh, stick to your inferior browsers if you wish, but remember that you IE retards are the reason web designers still have to use 1-bit image transparency and broken CSS 1.0. Yup, all this pain because IE hasn't caught up with the last 9(!) years of development in web standards. Beside the point is of course the fact that IE's interface and overall functionality, bandaged with a Google Toolbar or not, is an utter rotting abscess. The only valid argument for using IE provided in this thread so far is that it uses less resources than many other browsers (which may not be true if you count what it does behind the scenes). IME, the speed benefit from tabbed browsing more than makes up for the processing delays, however.

[Sephiroth]

sargebaldy said:

nice, i hope this kind of thing gets really widespread and people start realizing IE offers no security whatsoever.

i think you are talking about AOL, heh. yea IE may be decent but the fact is that it is not upgraded as much nor is it open source. so just about every back door is found. seeing that there are almost no laws about spyware it has become a real issue. other browsers are updated more offten and are mainly open source. meaning it is easy for a person to upgrade and compile.

i do admit spyware is a very very serious issue. honestly i will take a virus over spyware any day

[Fletcher`]

I use mozilla. After I unconsciously got it to quit fucking with my bookmarks it's been a godsend.

are the bookmarks stored in the .exe?

[sargebaldy]

Ultraviolet said:

Anyway, Baldy, I'm not sure that was a constructive post. I don't think the solution here should be something client-end, but the abolishment of targetted advertisement on the Internet.

I completely disagree, I see no reason to ban such a thing. Also you realize without advertising there would be far less sites since that's the primary thing keeping a lot of things going. DW certainly wouldn't exist if TF weren't making money off the advertising. Think before you post next time.

Alientank said:

What browser do you guys recommend? I use IE right now.

Honestly I'd just recommend anything that isn't IE. Try the Mozilla line of browers and you might try Opera as well. For someone used to IE you'd probably feel most comfortable with Mozilla Firebird/Firefox.

[Bloodshedder]

ravage said:

are the bookmarks stored in the .exe?

No self-respecting browser would store its bookmarks directly in the EXE file.

Try looking in C:\Documents and Settings\[Windows login name]\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\[profile name, usually "default"]\[some weirdly named subfolder]\bookmarks.html

[myk]

I personally don't like to put junk on my system.

IE is the way to go on Windows. There's nothing worse than adding additional crap to an OS unless it's totally necessary. And additional protective software is pretty lame too, really, and should be avoided if possible except for servers and such.

I use IE without any special restrictions on sites; being careful is enough to keep me safe. Any incidential spyware or trojan can be removed manually without too much work.

I used to use the Restricted sites feature for Doomworld when I used 5.5, but I noticed that 6.0 kind of ruined it in respect to the situation, since it automatically gets rid of Restricted sites' cookies (not a good thing in relation to Doomworld.) What I did was set Doomworld as a Trusted site, but set heavy restrictions on the category (I didn't need it for anything else.) No popups anymore, except (extremely rarely) a small harmless one.

And storing links in the EXE? What's that? Some browsers store them in the registry or in special files, I believe.

[Ultraviolet]

Fredrik said:

the speed benefit from tabbed browsing more than makes up for the processing delays, however.

I'm talking the interface for Mozilla Firebird not even being rendered until 30 seconds after I launch it, versus IE's 2 seconds.

sargebaldy said:

Also you realize without advertising there would be far less sites since that's the primary thing keeping a lot of things going. DW certainly wouldn't exist if TF weren't making money off the advertising. Think before you post next time.

I've survived without DW before.

[Fletcher`]

Bloodshedder said:

No self-respecting browser would store its bookmarks directly in the EXE file.

Try looking in C:\Documents and Settings\[Windows login name]\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\[profile name, usually "default"]\[some weirdly named subfolder]\bookmarks.html

Found it

[sargebaldy]

Ultraviolet said:

I've survived without DW before.

Yeah, well you'd lose more than that. Where do you think Google makes money, or online newspapers, "free" hosting, online mail services, or pretty much any entertainment website? The Internet would be pretty bland without advertising.

[Mordeth]

If an ad on Doomworld tries to install malware you should notify the admins. Do tell which ad gives problems, which file it tries to upload to you and from what region you are (as ads are sometimes served based on region).

And yes, UGO should screen their ads more thoroughly.

[DOOM Anomaly]

Say, just out of wondering, if I were to install lets say a Mozilla browser Dee-Lee, would it be a total different way to run the internet? (Like, would I be able to use it, or use IE, depending on which Exe I click on.) I am just wondering because I am not sure if I would know how to revert back if I tried it out and wasn't sure of it. :D And with that, what's the difference between Mozilla and Firefox? Thanks.

Mordeth said:

If an ad on Doomworld tries to install malware you should notify the admins. Do tell which ad gives problems, which file it tries to upload to you and from what region you are (as ads are sometimes served based on region).

Man, I am a bad reader, I read that as "If an ad on Doomworld tries to install malware you should notify the admins. Don't tell which ad gives problems, which file it tries to upload to you or from what religion you are (as ads are sometimes served based on religion)." :P I can't read at 4am, or ever. :D

[gatewatcher]

Ultraviolet said:

I'm talking the interface for Mozilla Firebird not even being rendered until 30 seconds after I launch it, versus IE's 2 seconds.

Do you have a crap machine or something?

[Ultraviolet]

gatewatcher said:

Do you have a crap machine or something?

Um, yes? Crap machines are a good way to show off efficient programming. Firebird is obviously not very efficient (compared to the Pinnacle of Modern Programming Magic, Microsoft Internet Explorer -- that's the sad part). There shouldn't be so much overhead in web browsing.

I've asked about where I can find a fast, efficient web browser that has all the features necessary for me without a lot of bloat, but people just go "OMFG STOP USIN IE U LOSARRR!!!!!11"

[Arioch]

I have a fucking 2.2ghz amd xp barton 2500@3200 with 1 gig of pc3200 and I STILL see fireshit chug.

There's just no excuse.

[gatewatcher]

Ultraviolet said:

Um, yes? Crap machines are a good way to show off efficient programming. Firebird is obviously not very efficient

An old machine is not very efficent in most cases.

[insertwackynamehere]

SP2 Baby! IE is getting a makeover! Course I'll still probably use Mozilla, but who knows. Anyway, the Google toolbar seems like a good bet IMO, along with Spybot and Adaware, but you've probably heard that a million times

Oh yeah, ZoneAlarm Pro (firewall), and TDS (trojan scanner) and SystemSuite 5 (cleanup, virus-scan)

[Ichor]

If something runs fast on a slow, obsolete computer, then it should have no trouble at all running on a faster one.

[Csonicgo]

Ichor said:

If something runs fast on a slow, obsolete computer, then it should have no trouble at all running on a faster one.

sadly, it's usually the opposite.

[Ichor]

I know. I'm talking mostly speed here. A 1 GHz processor should have no trouble running Doom, which was made around the time when 386s were state of the art. Unfortunately, even that isn't always true. Cryptic Passage (Blood expansion) won't run on computers that are too fast.

[sargebaldy]

Ultraviolet said:

Um, yes? Crap machines are a good way to show off efficient programming. Firebird is obviously not very efficient (compared to the Pinnacle of Modern Programming Magic, Microsoft Internet Explorer -- that's the sad part). There shouldn't be so much overhead in web browsing.

If IE is faster for you than it's because it's built right into your OS and is constantly hogging system resources to ensure it loads quickly. That's hardly "efficient programming", that's just using their OS dominance to get an unfair advantage in the browser competition, and in the process slowing everything else on your computer down. Although for me IE runs like ass comparatively anyway.

[Ultraviolet]

Um, even IE for Mac is pretty fast.

[sargebaldy]

IE for Mac is not at all the same software, it was completely rewritten from scratch. Try again.

[gatewatcher]

Baldy comes up big for the own.