Hey anyone know about this popup I'm getting here?

oriecat · Apr 30, 2004

I never click yes on those stupid things but they can seemingly screw you over anyway! I ran ad-aware yesterday as soon as it happened. Then this morning I was still getting some pop-ups so I made sure to update it and ran it again. Hopefully I'm good now! I might have to try Foxfire at home and see what I think, then I could ask IT if I could use it here at work if I like it. I have a hard time getting used to new browsers tho. They just never look right.

tr0gd0o0r · Apr 30, 2004

Linux is also a nice little fix for spyware.

Harpper · Apr 30, 2004

oriecat said:
I never click yes on those stupid things but they can seemingly screw you over anyway! I ran ad-aware yesterday as soon as it happened. Then this morning I was still getting some pop-ups so I made sure to update it and ran it again. Hopefully I'm good now! I might have to try Foxfire at home and see what I think, then I could ask IT if I could use it here at work if I like it. I have a hard time getting used to new browsers tho. They just never look right.

If all you are getting are just pop-ups then it's probably not spyware but just normal pop-ups. Apparently Chase switched his ad service to one that has some pop-ups. That's why I like Google Ads better but I think this one pays more. If the pop-ups are changing things on your computer then it could a virus installed on your computer or a skillful programmer who knows how to exploit IE's vulnerbilities. Firefox and Mozilla have built in pop-up blockers so it's been a long time since I've seen one.

What you do mean by they never look right? Firefox shouldn't be too hard to get used to because it's a stripped down version of Mozilla with makes it very user friendly to newbies. Mozilla really isn't that much harder but it has a lot more features so it can be overwhelming to new users at first.

They both work very similar to IE but just their outer look is different. If you slowly just pick apart the browser you'll see that it has a place to type a web address, bookmarks, back & forward buttons...or basically just like IE but with a different appearance. You can actually change the look because the browsers are skinnable.

If you need help using any of them then just ask. IE makes it a pain for web designers like myself so if I can get more people to make the switch then I'll gladly help. You're also a member of this forum so I'll help regardless. :wink:

aggiezach · Apr 30, 2004

Heres another vote for FireFox Its a great browser with many features IE doens't have. My favorite is the tabs, which let you have multiple pages open in the same window instead of having more than one instance of the program running (like IE does). You can just click on the different tabs to switch between sites. It can be very handy!

Its also pretty immune to popups and Ad/Spy ware. All in all its just great! Word Yo!

oriecat · Apr 30, 2004

Thanks for the offer of help, Harpper. I will definitely check it out at home. I think it usually is just a convenience and what I'm used to thing, so I probably just need to give it a shot again and not give up too soon.

I don't know what it was that I got yesterday,but it's been a ***** even today. I ran ad-aware last night and it found like 140 items. Then I was still getting popups today so I ran it again and it found 60 more. Thought I was good, then I restarted my computer, and when it comes back it starts installing stuff! So I get it to stop and run ad-aware for the 3rd time and it find 120 more items! Open my IE and it still works weird, so I run a virus scan with Norton and it finds 20 more adware threats, but no viruses. It deletes 12 but can't delete the other 8, so I manually do it... ARGH!! I think I am finally good, but I am going to do each scan once more before I go... I did get some emails yesterday that Norton said were infected but it deleted them, so I don't think they could have caused it. Maybe it was just waiting but it all started when my media player started popping open here, so it certainly seems like it was caused by an ad somehow.... I don't know. I don't care, I just want it gone!

Harpper · Apr 30, 2004

oriecat said:
I think it usually is just a convenience and what I'm used to thing, so I probably just need to give it a shot again and not give up too soon.

I've noticed that too. It's usually what someone starts out with is what they are comfortable with. I was like that for awhile until I explored my options. There's also other brand choices besides Media Player, Outlook, etc. but I shouldn't overwhelm you in one day. :wink:

oriecat said:
I don't know what it was that I got yesterday,but it's been a ***** even today. I ran ad-aware last night and it found like 140 items. Then I was still getting popups today so I ran it again and it found 60 more. Thought I was good, then I restarted my computer, and when it comes back it starts installing stuff! So I get it to stop and run ad-aware for the 3rd time and it find 120 more items! Open my IE and it still works weird, so I run a virus scan with Norton and it finds 20 more adware threats, but no viruses. It deletes 12 but can't delete the other 8, so I manually do it... ARGH!! I think I am finally good, but I am going to do each scan once more before I go... I did get some emails yesterday that Norton said were infected but it deleted them, so I don't think they could have caused it. Maybe it was just waiting but it all started when my media player started popping open here, so it certainly seems like it was caused by an ad somehow.... I don't know. I don't care, I just want it gone!

Wow, there's definitely something funky going on with your computer. IE does have a nasty problem that allows some programs to automatically download and install things on your computer if the programmer knows what they are doing. You should make sure your internet security zone is set to atleast medium. Don't set it to high though because you probably won't be able to surf most websites correctly.

Also just to let you know some of the files found with Ad-Aware are cookies or internet cache that Ad-Aware thinks might be potential spyware. Some of that stuff is probably normally obtain by surfing the internet but it's still a good idea to delete them every once in a while. With Firefox you tell it to delete them for you automatically.

Although in your case it seems that you are getting an usually high amount of files found by ad-aware. The program actually tells you what type of file it is. Are those mainly browser cookies? I won't be too concerned if they were just cookies. You'll get a lot by just surfing the internet, but your comment about IE working weird is what concerns me. What's weird about it?

oriecat · Apr 30, 2004

Yeah a lot of those files Ad-Aware found were cookies. What IE did that was weird so I knew something was still wrong was when I opened it up, it being the only program open at the time, then the blue bar at the top changed to the inactive bar color, as tho something else was open, but nothing else was, so it seemed to me like something was opening or doing something but hidden, (if you know what I mean, which you probably do because you seem to know your stuff here

) And I was getting all kinds of weird files in my task list. After I deleted the files that Norton told me to, most of them went away but there were still a couple and I looked one of them up and found a couple messages online talking about them being related to a peper trojan, so I think I may have gotten that, but I will look into it more when I get in on Monday. It's nice to be home with a good computer.

If it makes you feel better, I detest Media Player and Outlook already!

I use MusicMatch. I do use OE tho. *shrug* Really hate the full version tho.

Now I am off to download Firefox, Foxfire, whatever the hell it was called and give it a try.

Harpper · May 1, 2004

It does sound like you have a virus or trojan. Spyware usually only collects data about you whereas virus/trojans actively causes noticeable problems. Unless you run a program like ad-aware you most likely won't even know you have spyware because it works better if it hides itself and collects data about you unknowingly.

I also did a quick search about peper trojan and it does sound very close to what you have. You can go to this site to learn more about what you can do. It's an old forum post and doesn't tell you too much but they do have some good links. They also have a link to manually remove it if you are feeling brave enough. It might be good to back things up before doing so though.

Just remember that anti-virus programs only cure known viruses so new ones need to be sent in so that they can find a cure. Anti-virus programs also aren't too good at removing trojans which is why Norton isn't working too well. They can remove trojans once they know about them but it's not their specialty. There are trojan removal programs out there for trojans. Spyware removing programs like ad-aware only remove spyware.

Don't you just love all these bastards who make these horrible problems. :x

oriecat said:
If it makes you feel better, I detest Media Player and Outlook already! I use MusicMatch. I do use OE tho. *shrug* Really hate the full version tho.

LOL. Good girl! I like MusicMatch too but my brother uses WinAMP which has a large following. For emails I use the Mozilla's built in mail program but you can download it separately as ThunderBird. Its layout looks pretty similar to Outlook but I like Mozilla's mailer better. Most people probably won't notice much of a difference but I like using it because Outlook has more security holes. Basically Microsoft did a good job with Windows XP but not so great with their other stuff.

oriecat · May 1, 2004

I am really liking Firefox so far! :thumbsup: Except it makes my own site look weird, adding a scroll bar on the right of my content. Hmph, gotta figure that out...

Geronimo · May 1, 2004

let me know if you need any help with that.

manda · May 1, 2004

Gero is good at that. Im using firefox at the moment cause IE is playing up and I still hate it.
It screws with my site too Mindy.
Pics take forever to load in firefox :no smile:

oriecat · May 1, 2004

Your site looks just the same on my firefox! Well at least that I can notice.

Thanks Gero, I think I may need some help. I asked on the WP support and haven't gotten anywhere. Stupid scrollbar. :x

oriecat · May 1, 2004

Never mind, I think I found it!

I removed overflow: auto; from the rap css and now it's gone!

Harpper · May 1, 2004

manda said:
It screws with my site too Mindy.

oriecat said:
Never mind, I think I found it! I removed overflow: auto; from the rap css and now it's gone!

It's good to hear that you've gotten your site fixed orie. That's one of the problems I've found with IE. They allow too much non-standard coding so it may look right but it'll look wrong in just about every other browser. There have been times when I've had to write wrong coding to make it look right in IE.

The real frustration thing is that IE on windows can look different than IE on Mac, but Mozilla/Firefox look the same on both platforms. On average if things look wrong in Firefox then it will look wrong in most other browsers except IE. The only reason IE can get away with it is because so many people use IE. Its always a good idea to see how your website looks on other browsers. If your experience is the same as mine you'll see that IE is the one that displays things wrong compared to other browsers.

manda said:
Pics take forever to load in firefox :no smile:

That's weird. I've noticed that the speeds are either the same as IE or faster. This forum has been slow in the past few days so that could be it. If the server is slow then it doesn't matter what browser you use.

manda · May 1, 2004

No its not just here. I find that in forefox, any pic on any page, will slowly drop down rather than automatically be there as with IE. I have cable and a fast connection too.