Site Pop-Up Issue

[RobCRogers]

I'm not sure whether it's this site, my computer, or both, but today, every time I go to a new page in the discussion boards, a new window tries to open in IE, linking to this site:

http://sponsored%20by:%20rpgshop.com/

It's driving me nuts. Any suggestions?

[Ben Seeman]

Very odd. I'll look into it. Have you ever been to the linked site previously?

[RobCRogers]

Very odd. I'll look into it. Have you ever been to the linked site previously?
Not that I'm aware of.

Before, I got an error whenever it loaded. Now it's stopped loading and I'm not getting the error anymore when I try to visit (now I just get an empty page). I would have figured that it was something hinky with my computer except that it only was happening on your site and was directing me to the rpgshop link.

Thanks, Ben!

[Super Squirrel]

I'm going to wager a gamble that this is spyware. Check your computer if you can.

[StGrimblefig]

I'm going to wager a gamble that this is spyware. Check your computer if you can.
I think the proper term is adware. Spyware collects information about you and sends it back to its master. This is just hijacking his browser to display its master's advetisement.

I would strongly suggest that you download and run AD-AWARE as soon as you can.

[RobCRogers]

I think the proper term is adware. Spyware collects information about you and sends it back to its master. This is just hijacking his browser to display its master's advetisement.

I would strongly suggest that you download and run AD-AWARE as soon as you can.
I did a partial run of it earlier today (I'd done a full run yesterday) and that didn't help, but I'll do a full run a little later.

[Susano]

Here at Sinai Hospital, I've seen spyware just swamp a machine. I've found Spysweeper (got to Download.com and search for it) to work well.

Of course, at home, I am running Macintosh OS 10.3.5 and Safari and laugh a pop-ups and spyware.

Hah! I saw! Hahaha!

:D

[RobCRogers]

I did a partial run of it earlier today (I'd done a full run yesterday) and that didn't help, but I'll do a full run a little later.
Did a full run (with an updated version of Ad-aware 6.0). I annihilated some spyware/adware, but no joy. It's still happening.

[tancred]

Rob, try running Spybot - Search & Destroy. The current version is 1.3.
I found that it eliminated some things that AdAware didn't catch, and vice versa. (Make sure to let it update first, though; just like getting current virus definitions.)

If that doesn't doesn't do it (and it might not), there's another free program called HijackThis, which goes even deeper into your system to get rid of this crap.

I can't remember the links to either, but you can go onto MSN.com and find an article in Slate magazine that did link to them.

Good luck!

[keithcurtis]

Here at Sinai Hospital, I've seen spyware just swamp a machine. I've found Spysweeper (got to Download.com and search for it) to work well.

Of course, at home, I am running Macintosh OS 10.3.5 and Safari and laugh a pop-ups and spyware.

Hah! I saw! Hahaha!

:D

My favorite are the little pop-up windows designed to look like a Windows alert. When it tells anyone can get info about my "PC", I just have to laugh. It's funny on so many levels.

Keith "Hahaha!" Curtis

[RobCRogers]

Rob, try running Spybot - Search & Destroy. The current version is 1.3.
I found that it eliminated some things that AdAware didn't catch, and vice versa. (Make sure to let it update first, though; just like getting current virus definitions.)

If that doesn't doesn't do it (and it might not), there's another free program called HijackThis, which goes even deeper into your system to get rid of this crap.

I can't remember the links to either, but you can go onto MSN.com and find an article in Slate magazine that did link to them.

Good luck!
Thanks! So far, Spybot seems to be working. Fingers crossed...

[Ben Seeman]

My favorite are the little pop-up windows designed to look like a Windows alert. When it tells anyone can get info about my "PC", I just have to laugh. It's funny on so many levels.

Keith "Hahaha!" Curtis
*kick

[arcady]

This is one of many reasons why I use Mozilla's Firefox.

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

Thin, fast, modern, no popups, no viruses, no security holes...

Browser: Firefox
Email: Thunderbird
Word Proc: Open Office
Spyware and virus invasions: None anymore...

[Blue]

If Mozilla had a bigger share of the browser marketplace, you can bet there'd be holes and exploits. At this point it's not worth the efforts of hackers to play with Mozilla (about 4% of browsers) when they can hit IE and nail lots more people.

And then there's freaks of nature like Keith "My computer grows on trees" Curtis.

(For the record I liked Mozilla better too, except some sites I had to visit regularly didn't like it much)

[Simon]

If Mozilla had a bigger share of the browser marketplace, you can bet there'd be holes and exploits. At this point it's not worth the efforts of hackers to play with Mozilla (about 4% of browsers) when they can hit IE and nail lots more people.

And then there's freaks of nature like Keith "My computer grows on trees" Curtis.

(For the record I liked Mozilla better too, except some sites I had to visit regularly didn't like it much)
Actually, check the current stats -- IE's down <em>huge</em> as a result of several recent advisories.

Firefox is currently claiming something on the order of 10% of the market. Enough that M$ has fired up its development team for IE again.

The main bit in all of the recent versions of the browsers is standards compliance. During the browser wars, you had browser inventing their own crap....if you wanted something to work on IE, it wouldn't work on NS (without recoding) and vice-versa. Nowadays, you can code to W3C standards and have your site work on the current versions of most browsers.

IE 6 is actually not half bad (especially considering its age). Lots of security problems, but given its market share, that's more or less a given.

Firefox is fantastic. Safari ain't half bad (though it doesn't do too well at correcting for improper markup). Opera is probably at the bottom of the heap (problems with some standard markup, as well as very poor ability to handle non-standard markup).

My pick is Firefox. We'll see what IE has to offer when the next version is released (from what I hear, M$ is actually listening to the critics and implementing a lot of nifty features in the new version).

As far as the problem that started this thread, it's nothing that the site is doing.....this is something on the user's system. The advice for the spyware scrubs is dead-on.

[Killer Shrike]

I like Firefox better than IE, but my job requires me to code for IE primarily. I use IE at work, and switch off between Firefox and IE at home.

One thing closer to home, these boards are much snappier under Firefox than IE.

[arcady]

Mozilla's lack of problems is not due to market share.

Netscape never had security problems even back when it was dominant (pre 98/99 - I think that's when it went down).

Mozilla and thus Firefox lack problems because they are open source.

Diverse groups of programmers can add to it, and can see the code and find and point out the holes.

If there is a security issue with Mozilla, it will be found likely before most of us Mozilla users have even downloaded the version with it.

IE has problems because of the culture in Microsoft encourages poor quality work - coders don't really communicate well even internally, largely insulate themselves from the world outside, don't share code, and don't see the larger picture - but rather work on small individual segments.

IE's problems are not from attacks upon it, but actually built in flaws, such as ActiveX which allows people to write to your hard drive without your permission... Something done to encourage push technology. That is not the exception but rather the rule with how IE works.

Mozilla does not allow such things, its very structure is more secure, and its culture makes it easy to defend from attack.

[TechnoViking]

CWSshedder is a good program that remove IE hijacker setting and programs. I suggest using it with SpyBot 1.3.

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,23551,00.asp

[BlackSword]

Firefox (and all other browsers) do have flaws and aren't safe just because they weren't made by those evil people at MS*.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/15/mozilla_patches/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/21/full_house_browser_bugs/

So be sure to keep up with the latest browser. As said, the reason IE is the worst is because its the biggest.

*Note, I am one of the biggest critics of MS and have written several rants about them. However, credit where credit is due, no software is entirely secure unless you clip that umbilical cord to the internet.

[BlackSword]

I used the free version of Adaware for a while. It found lots of ad-ware, but it did a piss poor job of removing lots of ad-ware. Unless finances are tight, I would suggesting picking up a full copy. I switched to McAffee virus scan which also scans for ad-ware, it found about 20 extra files that the free version of Adaware missed.

[StGrimblefig]

... Mozilla's Firefox.
... no security holes...

That's not entirely true. See here (http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=5404) for a counterexample.

It is not that there are no security holes, it is that the jacka$$es who exploit them haven't been interested in Firefox. And since Firefox is open source, often the person who finds an exploitable bug also sends in a fix for it (which is not possible with any M$ product).

Any software as complex as a (standards-compliant) web browser is bound to have a few ways to break it -- the key is that the community is involved and active in finding and fixing them before somebody loses their business over it.

btw, I use Firefox myself, and I give it the higest possible reccomendation. Thunderbird, too.

[keithcurtis]

*kick
*owie-owie-owie!

Keith "Hey! What'd I do?" Curtis

[arcady]

Actually those stories make my point rather than detract from it.

The very announcement of the flaw in the last article also announced its fix. It was also a browser crashing flaw, not a security violation.

In the prior articles, we see the community announcing that it declared a hunt for flaws in its own application, and used the results of that to determine what to fix.

What these announcements shows is how the open source community can work faster because it works in the open - with the lights on - and with a community that by its very nature has a vested interest in perfection or quality rather than packaging and marketing.

[RobCRogers]

Update:

The Spybot program seemed to take care of the problem when the Immunizer was running, but it caused other problems for me (system lag, blocking pop-ups it shouldn't have, etc.)--for example, it kept me from successfully giving rep to several of you! I ultimately disabled the Immunizer function.

I tried running through the board with my Task Manager open, and a process called pgtaff.exe seemed to fire up whenever I went to a new page. I killed it out and that seems to be working...

I'll let you know if the problem comes back up.

If someone knows what pgtaff.exe is, and if it's something vital to the life of my computer system, please let me know. :)

[Blue]

pgtaff.exe is definitely spyware/adware. There should be no ill effects to removing it, assuming that includdes removing things like registry entries (which Adaware and Spybot usually do).

[RobCRogers]

pgtaff.exe is definitely spyware/adware. There should be no ill effects to removing it, assuming that includdes removing things like registry entries (which Adaware and Spybot usually do).
That's good to hear. Adaware and Spybot didn't seem to find it for some reason, but I manually deleted it from my Windows folder and the registry. The boards are working like a charm again.

Thanks, everyone!