BonziBuddy, get the FUCK off my screen!!!

The BBQ Pit
1

Pop ups are annoying in se…one of life’s multitude of petty nuissances. But at least twice I have gotten a pop-up for some item called BonziBuddy, which apparently has some animated monkey surfing the net with you.

The pop up takes up the entire screen, when you try to click to close it, the java download offer pops up, and another window pops up and the process repeats itself - trying to push you to download the thing - until your browser crashes.

To the creator or owner of BonziBuddy.

Dear Sir Anal Sphincter Scab Tissue, or Madam:

Your so called product, which only the most inbred three eyed descendants of the Royal House of Hapsburg could potentially appreciate for entertainment value, is a complete and utter waste of the public’s time. If my browser crashes one more time as a result of your fucking ‘marketing strategy’, I will go to your ISP provider, whip my wiener out, and piss on the receptionist’s face.

In closing…may your tonsils forever reek of semi-felched jizz.

Thank you.

2

I believe you may have accidently gotten the Bonzibuddy installed on your computer (I’ve never seen an ad that pervasive without something getting installed locally). Get Adaware and have it scan your computer… it’ll get rid of installed ads and spyware for you. A handy little tool to have.

3

it was definitely installed on your computer. That sucks. Some freeware programs do that to you… download and run anything lately?

4

Yes I did download something lately. I used adaware earlier today and the monkey has yet to return, thanks to SPOOFE

I used to use “safeweb” to kill pop ups, but they went out of business :frowning:

5

BonzaiBuddy used to be a parrot.

[sub]this message brought to you by the Society For Totally Useless Information[/sub]

6

Er - not that I have a hidden agenda or anything, but Mozilla has an option that kills all popups. Just in case you might care.

::tucking a folder labeled “BS’s agenda” safely behind the sofa::

7

Can someone tell me what, exactly, Bonzi Buddy’s purpose was that is so important that it must be given to people at every opportunity?

8

But Popup Sniping is a favorite sport of mine. I expect it to be an Olympic event in the near future. How can people get any good at it if they can’t hone their skills by eradicating the accursed popups within three microseconds of their incarnation?

9

I feel the same damn way about “comet cursor”. I damn near stopped letting anyone else even touch my computer because when they walked away, I’d have the friggin comet cursor. Arghhh

10

I imagine your skills as a popup slayer could come in handy in the coming years.

Scene:
The corner Net cafe. Users are huddled behind the coffee bar, as reflected in their eyes and glasses all the screens slowly fill with ads bleating for their attention and begging for credit card numbers and files locations to download to.

[close-up to User 1]
User 1: “Can’t I take one step past my homepage without being beset by these vile beasts? Who can help us?”

[the door flies open with a bang. Enter SPOOFE Belmont, cracking a whip made from a mouse cord, a box of blank formatted floppy disks in a pouch on his belt. The music swells.]
User 2: The Slayer!

Net Cafe Elder: [taking a pull from his mug of latte] Oh mighty Slayer, our cafe has been invaded by creatures beyond our ken. We beg you, save us!

SPOOFE: [striding forward, slinging the cloak from his shoulders] Fear not, citizens. I shall not rest until these demons have been exorcised.

[close-up of SPOOFE raising one calloused, mouse-worn hand, and placing it dramatically on the peripheral of the first computer in the row.]

[slow pan across the faces of the Users. The lights flicker, and various noises can be heard - inhuman beeps, the occasional monkey howl, and soft cracks all underscored by a furious tapdance of mouse-clicking. They flinch.]

SPOOFE: [squinting from the battle] The evil has been vanquished - for now. These things may yet return, for their inhuman masters spawn them to no end with the goal of overwhelming humanity.

Elder: Thank ye, oh Slayer! Please, take our humble cafe’s finest biscotti. We cannot thank you enough.

User 2: We can surf again! Oh, happy day!

[User 1 places SPOOFE’s cloak back around his shoulders. SPOOFE accepts the proferred jar of pastry.]

SPOOFE: My quest to rescue the helpless Users like yourselves cannot end. Somewhere, there is a pop-up happening.

[SPOOFE opens the door and steps out. The mist swirls around him and he disappears. The Users gather around the computers once again. The Elder refills his mug. A child laughs. Cue end credits.]

11

It’s been said, but just for emphasis:

AD-AWARE
AD-AWARE
AD-AWARE

12

Let me express my agreement on this one. I hate Comet Cursor with a passion, even with adaware its over 100 friggin files to manually select and delete.:smack:

13

Bwahahahaha! Many thanks, Mr. BraheSilver… sheer genius!

14

One thing I have to thank Bonzi Buddy for - it has been the inspiration behind several highly entertaining and very colourful rants that I’ve seen, both here and elsewhere.

So, in a way, I guess we all owe Bonzi Buddy a debt of laughter and joy. Perhaps we should send him money…?

15

People used to call me (tech support) about Bonzi Buddy all the time. (Especially when it was a parrot! People HATED the stupid thing.) They still call frequently about it. The stupid thing is you can’t get it off, there’s no uninstall option. You have to go to their website and download the uninstaller to get rid of it. (The only problem is, who in heck knows what else you’re downloading and installing at that point…)

(hahaha… they will uninstall Bonzi-- and get Gator! BWAHAHAHA)

16

From home I use a Mac. From work we have an effective Firewall that blocks out these things such as BonziBuddy and Comet Cursor. I have no idea what these things are. Could someone describe them for me, please?

17

Just to be redundant and repetitive, Ad-Aware kicks ass.

For those interested, here is a simple, lo-tech way for Windows users to block a lot of advertising – it’s an easy solution – no DNS look-up for known ad-servers. (They resolve to your localhost.) Saves a lot of bandwidth and panty-twisting. One step – copy the HOSTS file to your windows directory. (You may need to rename the file to remove any extension your browser tries to force on you.)

18

I cannot explain in technical terms, only to say that Gator and Bonzi Buddy are sort of the ‘telemarketers’ of the online world.

Comet Cursor looks cool to some 9 year olds (you can have sword shaped, sports logo, or flag cursors instead of the plain white arrow). But it insinuates itself into every corner of your hard drive.

19

So we’re supposed to believe those callouses and the frozen position of his hand were caused by excessively moving his mouse?

20

Too bad the name “Senior Ding-Dong” was already claimed by a Simpsons character, SPOOFE, It’d be perfect… :stuck_out_tongue: