Popup ads and HTML refreshing out of control

marshaul · Dec 10, 2008

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Ugh, who uses IE? I prefer Safari for speed, but I use Firefox secondarily. I keep Opera around on one of my machines to make jokes about. At any rate, the problem isn't browser specific.

You IT guys are too used to newbs.

Those of us who are experienced with machines know to exhaust possible human errors before doing something like posting on teh intarwebz.

Edit: Oh, and since it begs the question, I run Mac OS X on all my primary machines. Although, I've been known to use Safari in XP anyway.

DKSuddeth · Dec 10, 2008

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for any who are interested, having been in IT for 15 years, there is certainly something happening with at least one of the ads. I had some spyware secretly installed on my laptop while on this forum, so it's happening.

Citizen · Dec 10, 2008

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I'm still having problems. Everything you guys have mentioned above.

I know little about IT. But I do know it is specific to this forum. Other sites I visit regularly have not changed at all.

If someone has a moment, please PM me with things I can do to mitigate or solve. I've got IE (7?) I think.

sv_libertarian · Dec 10, 2008

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Spyware? What is this spyware of which you speak? I'm running Firefox and Linux, no problems here...

My touchpad, like all touchpads I have used under Linux though seems to have a mind of it's own at random times....

PT111 · Dec 10, 2008

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The firs time I open this thread early this morning an ad popped up at the bottom of the screen and redirected my browser. I hit back a few times and returned to the forum.

I have never had another popup or redirectwhile checking out OCDO before this morning or since. Iusevarious versions of Widows and IE 6 & 7. Ihave no problems with popups or redirects on almost any site except those very persistant ones. I also am one of those stupid IT people that all of you like to make fun of but I can tell you that if you are having problems on OCDO like several of you are describing it is in your machine. I get sick and tired of the people that constantly download spyware and related trojans right after I clean their machine and then claim they didn't do anything.

From how the popup acted this moarning I would almost say that it had something to do with the OP embeding it in the thread from his machine. I have tried all of the browsers and haven't found one that is any more immune than the other. That is after experimenting with 400 machines, most of them being public use PC's. Every case of PC infection that I have come across (and that is hundreds) can be traced back to the user failing to use the PC properly.

david.ross · Dec 10, 2008

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You wouldn't have any issues if you just "Get a Mac."

Anyway, I should also mention I use Firefox + Adbock(with updater) + Noscript to block any and all ads. I remember a time when I used to view ads, which was annoying. If I use a computer without my Firefox setup, then it gets annoying and I get out my machine.

ScottyT · Dec 10, 2008

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I have never had a popup ad on OCDO.

MarkNH · Dec 10, 2008

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PT111 wrote:

I also am one of those stupid IT people that all of you like to make fun of but I can tell you that if you are having problems on OCDO like several of you are describing it is in your machine. I get sick and tired of the people that constantly download spyware and related trojans right after I clean their machine and then claim they didn't do anything.

PT111: Please stop assuming the people in this thread are idiots, I have been in IT since 1991 so I know a little about keeping my own computer free of spyware/adware/viruses (in fact after the redirect I experienced I triple-checked this PC for any problems that could have been responsible for the redirect at my end even though I haven't had a spyware/adware/virus infection in many years).

Yes I could use an ad blocker or script blocker but I normally have no problem with online advertising and find that Firefox along with a flash blocker and good AV/spyware protection to be sufficient.

It appears that the redirects and/or pop-ups are being caused by one or more of the new adbrite ads that were added to the forum a few days ago.

John Pierce · Dec 10, 2008

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The AdBrite ads are most definitely NOT supposed to be doing ANY redirects, pop-ups or pop unders.

Could I ask for all of you experiencing these issues to PM me the details. If this is, in fact, caused by AdBrite then I will remove the ads!

I would rather not make the paltry ad dollars than cause a poor experience for our users!

Thanks!

John

John Pierce · Dec 10, 2008

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After thinking about it, given the serious nature of the issues that have been reported, I am not going to wait. I have removed all of the Ads on the site.

While all my research seems to indicate that AdBrite is a reputable ad supplier, I cannot ignore the reports.

My apologies for any inconvenience.

Future ads (if there are any) will only be self-hosted banners for firearms manufacturers, accessory suppliers, holster manufacturers, etc. If anyone knows of any such businesses that would like to have their banner on EVERY PAGE of the forum for practically nothing (we only seek to offset the hosting costs or our site and forum) then let me know.

Thanks.

John

Citizen · Dec 10, 2008

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THANKS, JOHN!!!

My problems magically disappeared. No troubles at all.

To confirm, in the little tray at the bottom of my screen, AdBrite was a word that appeared a number of times while things were shuffling aroundon their own discretion.

DKSuddeth · Dec 10, 2008

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just for some extra confirmation, I was on the boards early this morning on my home laptop using firefox and I did see some rather long periods of wait time switching between forums while it grabbed the adbrite URLs, but on my work laptop I was using Internet Explorer and as soon as I opened up the news forum, i got hit with the redirect and then random web ads about every 5 minutes. Anti spyware software caught 4 files that had been installed on my system causing the popups.

marshaul · Dec 10, 2008

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Bravo_Sierra wrote:

If you know so much why did you post at all?

And that, friends, is exactly why I posted at all. Thanks, John.

JoeSparky · Dec 10, 2008

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Citizen wrote:

I'm still having problems. Everything you guys have mentioned above.

I know little about IT. But I do know it is specific to this forum. Other sites I visit regularly have not changed at all.

If someone has a moment, please PM me with things I can do to mitigate or solve. I've got IE (7?) I think.

I was in the same boat.....

this morning I went to the settings page on my IE and discovered I had NO pop up blocking at all....

set it to block most and problem went away!

JoeSparky

AWDstylez · Dec 10, 2008

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JoeSparky wrote:

Citizen wrote:

I'm still having problems. Everything you guys have mentioned above.

I know little about IT. But I do know it is specific to this forum. Other sites I visit regularly have not changed at all.

If someone has a moment, please PM me with things I can do to mitigate or solve. I've got IE (7?) I think.

Click to expand...

I was in the same boat.....

this morning I went to the settings page on my IE and discovered I had NO pop up blocking at all....

set it to block most and problem went away!

JoeSparky

That's so odd because I use IE7, I have no pop-up blocker enabled, and minimum security all around,yet I almost never get pop-ups, I never have problems (knock on wood), and it's the fastest and cleanest running browsers I've used. I don't understand why people love firefox so much. I've used it on a few different computers and I couldn't tell a bit of difference.

marshaul · Dec 10, 2008

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I personally think Safari cleans up compared to both IE and Firefox, but that's only really become true in recent versions where Apple has really fixed a lot of compatibility issues, to the point where I need to use firefox maybe twice a month. Safari has fast, good-looking rendering which IE and Firefox simply don't match.

Bravo_Sierra · Dec 10, 2008

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I'm using Ubuntu Linux 8.10
Firefox 3.0.3

*shrugs*

deepdiver · Dec 10, 2008

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AWDstylez wrote:

That's so odd because I use IE7, I have no pop-up blocker enabled, and minimum security all around,yet I almost never get pop-ups, I never have problems (knock on wood), and it's the fastest and cleanest running browsers I've used. I don't understand why people love firefox so much. I've used it on a few different computers and I couldn't tell a bit of difference.

I'll give you one example: My wife prefers IE7 and when she does her normal email checking and such on my laptop through IE7 I typically end up cleaning up 5-8Meg of crap when I run my cleanup program before shutting down. On the days she just uses Firefox because I already have it open, I clean up <1 Meg of stuff. In other words, IE saves a lot of crap to your computer that Firefox doesn't, and since some of that stuff may be spy/malware/trojans that will try to run when you reboot (or just unnecessary stuff that eventually slows down your computer), I prefer Firefox just on that security level alone.

I used to use IE at my office and would run a cleanup program on all computers once a month. It was typical to delete 100 Megs and 30,000 trash files. After I migrated to Firefox, I now typically delete a few hundred files and less than 5 Megs of trash per computer.

Lastly, if you have IE7 filters set up to equal the security of Firefox natively, while it will initially load and open faster than Firefox, it will render pages more slowly from there on. I have read the opinion of several internet security guys who say that IE7, with default filters on, is roughly as secure as the default Firefox but that the security comes as a price making it not nearly as fast as Firefox. But then I don't run Firefox in a default state and the add-ons and setting changes I use make it more secure than IE7 and faster. Even most of my MS-fan boy computer tech friends still call IE "Internet Exploder" and prefer Firefox for security and speed reasons.

Not trying to change your mind, but rather just addressing your not understanding why so many people like Firefox. Certainly IE7 with finally having tabbed browsing and pfishing filters is leaps and bounds ahead of prior versions of IE.

xd.40 · Dec 11, 2008

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I use Firefox with the Adblock Plus plugin and don't see any ads anyways! :lol: :shock:

AWDstylez · Dec 11, 2008

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deepdiver wrote:

I'll give you one example: My wife prefers IE7 and when she does her normal email checking and such on my laptop through IE7 I typically end up cleaning up 5-8Meg of crap when I run my cleanup program before shutting down. On the days she just uses Firefox because I already have it open, I clean up <1 Meg of stuff. In other words, IE saves a lot of crap to your computer that Firefox doesn't, and since some of that stuff may be spy/malware/trojans that will try to run when you reboot (or just unnecessary stuff that eventually slows down your computer), I prefer Firefox just on that security level alone.

I used to use IE at my office and would run a cleanup program on all computers once a month. It was typical to delete 100 Megs and 30,000 trash files. After I migrated to Firefox, I now typically delete a few hundred files and less than 5 Megs of trash per computer.

Lastly, if you have IE7 filters set up to equal the security of Firefox natively, while it will initially load and open faster than Firefox, it will render pages more slowly from there on. I have read the opinion of several internet security guys who say that IE7, with default filters on, is roughly as secure as the default Firefox but that the security comes as a price making it not nearly as fast as Firefox. But then I don't run Firefox in a default state and the add-ons and setting changes I use make it more secure than IE7 and faster. Even most of my MS-fan boy computer tech friends still call IE "Internet Exploder" and prefer Firefox for security and speed reasons.

Not trying to change your mind, but rather just addressing your not understanding why so many people like Firefox. Certainly IE7 with finally having tabbed browsing and pfishing filters is leaps and bounds ahead of prior versions of IE.

Interesting. Yes, cleaning those masses of temp files out is a real pain the ass. I didn't know that firefox saved less.

Popup ads and HTML refreshing out of control

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