Google Ad Question

General Questions
#1

Recently I have been getting a Host78.com ad whenever I click on the google link in my Firefox bookmarks. It appears I can make it go away by deleting my history/cookies, but it comes back after I use google a couple times afterwards. I don’t want to clear my temporary cache every single time I want or need to use google.

My question is: is there any way to stop this? Its annoying. When you attempt to navigate away, it gives you one of those “Are you sure you want to navigate away from this page” windows. I think there’s a way to block certain “hosts” but from what I have read, doing so can really slow down your internet browsing.

Is there a simple way to make this stop? Alas, searching google yields very little, unsurprisingly.

Edit: its not malware. The first couple times I saw this I thought maybe my browser had been hijacked. It hasn’t. Avast and Malware bytes reveal nothing.

#2

My thought would be to try typing the address into Adblock. Don’t know if this will work but it is a simple harmless attempt to do something.

#3

Sure sounds like malware. Try HijackThis and MalWarebytes too.

#4

I am a member since 2004 and in the last few months I get an ad after the first post and at the end of the thread. It’s a different ad every time. To get rid of this I have to log in every time, even after I leave SD for half an hour.

It’s so annoying I’m just about to blackmail SD: Do something or I won’t renew.

Really I’m not going to.

But please let me know how I can get rid of that curse.

#5

These ads should only be for Guests. Members shouldn’t get any ads. Complain to the powers that be over SDMB. :slight_smile:

#6

The title of this thread is a bit misleading. This certainly isn’t a Google ad; they don’t work this way at all. Seems like something in your bookmarks got hijacked somehow, maybe by malware.

Try deleting your cookie cache and then going manually to the URL that your link represents. You haven’t told us whether or not the link simply goes to www.google.com or to some variation thereof, so it’s not that easy for anyone to figure out what’s going on.

#7

Follow the steps in this thread:


(you can skip the go offline part, and just start with Step 2 or Step 3)

Blocking hosts does not slow down your browsing in any way. On the contrary, it could speed up your browsing by not connecting to the actual hosts. Malicious hosts should be blocked to prevent any possible attacks.

#8

Click on “Remember Me” next time you log in. You should not see any ads when logged in.

#9

I just got it again, here’s the link: http://host78.secure9.com/?S=0010&X=&P=43204&pline1=googleincome&DOM=host78.secure9.com

Thank you

#10

Not entirely true. A very large hosts file will take time to process, and can slow you down. But a small one usually won’t.

I tried to use a premade one with thousands of entries for adblocking on the computer I’m using now, and it slowed things down considerably. Maybe it’s less of a factor on faster computers. But that doesn’t mean the slowdown doesn’t exist.

#11

(Since your original question has been answered.)

Why do you have a google link in your bookmarks? Firefox has a search box right there in the upper right corner of every page, and you can set that to seach with Google. Surely that’s more convenient than going into your bookmarks to find your Google bookmark?

Can you explain why you are doing it this seemingly inconvenient way?

#12

I don’t know. Habit from years of IE use, I suppose. I’m so used to using bookmarks.

#13

Thank you xash. It was that simple!