# I Pit certain Internet news sites that hog my computer **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 8, 2017, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690 "2017-03-08T14:19:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2017, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/21 "2017-03-10T21:29:13Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Thank you. I’ve already downloaded the free versions of both Zemana and SpyHunter. One or both implied they would remove my virus if I upgraded to the paid version. Maybe I’d better stop being such a cheapskate! > > Your 2nd link supposedly gives manual removal instructions, but they are difficult or impossible to follow. (Trying to follow them is how, due to my own blunder, I lost my saved passwords, etc.) For example > “Navigate to %windir%/system32/Drivers/etc/host” > I can find several folders with similar name, but no etc/host anywhere (unless it’s marked _hidden_). “Show hidden folders” is probably the first box I check when troubleshooting/cleaning/antivirusing pretty much anything. It’s magical. ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2017, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/22 "2017-03-10T21:32:29Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > I’ve said before in other threads, I see myself as the computer version of William F. Buckley - I stand athwart “progress” and shout STOP!!! I think it’s very reminiscent of a great man, [QUOTE=Steve Rogers] Doesn’t matter what the press says. Doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world – "No, YOU move.” [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2017, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/23 "2017-03-10T22:36:04Z")
The Tronc news websites, most notably the Chicago Tribune, are by far the worst offenders. NO combination of Adblock rules seems to work on Tronc sites. Go to [chicagotribune.com](http://chicagotribune.com) and see for yourself—you’re immediately bombarded with ads and subscription nags, and the site just keeps loading, loading, loading, until you finally give up and close the tab. Tronc has declared war on adblockers, and they seem to be winning—at the cost of making their site unusable. ---
**Author:** ![bmasters1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5e925/32.png) [@bmasters1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmasters1)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/24 "2017-03-11T09:42:13Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > The Tronc news websites, most notably the Chicago Tribune, are by far the worst offenders. NO combination of Adblock rules seems to work on Tronc sites. Go to [chicagotribune.com](http://chicagotribune.com) and see for yourself—you’re immediately bombarded with ads and subscription nags, and the site just keeps loading, loading, loading, until you finally give up and close the tab. > > Tronc has declared war on adblockers, and they seem to be winning—at the cost of making their site unusable. Why would Tronc insist that you need to have ads all over the place in order to be able to read the articles on their newspapers’ websites?! That’s absurd! ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/25 "2017-03-11T17:32:30Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > With Firefox — I’m not going to say how many tabs are up; but it’s 8 windows on 3 virtual desktops for tidiness — the problem is solved by ticking ‘_Don’t load tabs until open_’ in preferences. Huh. Didn’t k ow that was a native option. I thought that was part of Tab Mix Plus. The disadvantage of using this instead of a tab suspending add-on is that you can’t load tabs in the background so they will be ready when you flplaceholder. > [@](#): > > Poor stupid Chrome doesn’t have this ( believe me, I **looked** ) so I installed **Tabkeeper** ‘_Automatically closes inactive tabs and makes it easy to get them back_.’ However although it does indeed reserve the tabs from plain sight [I got it because poor stupid Chrome concertinaed the tabs in the top row instead of going past the boundaries], each tab process is still discretely there in memory… A lot of the addons I saw when I googled don’t hide the tabs from the tab row. What they do is unload the page and replace it with a placeholder, while keeping track of the URL, which they reload if you try to use the tab. And you’ll be saying “poor dumb Firefox” when version 57 comes along. At least, with Chrome, you knew what you were getting. They didn’t change their design philosophy out from under you. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/26 "2017-03-11T18:29:00Z")
My views on Firefox, and their dumb mimicking of Chrome ever since it came out are unspeakable — which is why I use an old reliable IceCat. [I’ve got the regular Fx for emergencies, it’s just this moment updated to 52 — astoundingly ridiculous update cycle. — the Classic Theme Restorer helps a little… Just a little.] The Chrome placeholder tab things don’t address the concertina effect, where one has 50 odd tabs squeezed into the length of the screen — I’ve never seen this on any other browser, and lord knows there are very few different browsers. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/27 "2017-03-11T22:24:53Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > The Chrome placeholder tab things don’t address the concertina effect, where one has 50 odd tabs squeezed into the length of the screen — I’ve never seen this on any other browser, and lord knows there are very few different browsers. I actually forced that feature in Firefox. It keeps me from leaving open too many tabs unintentionally. If I do it intentionally, I just open a new window. Oh, and BTW, Classic Theme Restorer (and, currently, most other addons) stops working in Firefox 57. That’s what I was referring to. Only WebExtensions–the not quite up-to-par Mozilla implementation of Chrome’s extensions–will work. I’d planned on sticking with 52 ESR until they got their shit sorted out, but Firefox 52 went and removed ALSA support on Linux, so I’m stuck on Firefox 51 (as one of my addons does not work on 45 ESR). And that ALSA thing isn’t even copying Chrome. Chrome has ALSA support, like pretty much every Linux application. Because ALSA just works. PulseAudio doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/28 "2017-03-11T23:00:20Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Oh, and BTW, Classic Theme Restorer (and, currently, most other addons) stops working in Firefox 57. That’s what I was referring to. Only WebExtensions–the not quite up-to-par Mozilla implementation of Chrome’s extensions–will work. What? Argh! ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/29 "2017-03-11T23:02:20Z")
I also don’t like the videos on a loop that clog up my Facebook wall. If I want to set it into motion, I should be able to do so myself. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/30 "2017-03-11T23:07:54Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > For example > “Navigate to %windir%/system32/Drivers/etc/host” > I can find several folders with similar name, but no etc/host anywhere (unless it’s marked _hidden_). That is because the pathname is incorrect. It should be ```auto C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts ``` (unless your main drive is not C: or your “%windir%” is not “Windows”) ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/31 "2017-03-12T02:04:16Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > That is because the pathname is incorrect. It should be > > ```auto > > C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts > > ``` > > (unless your main drive is not C: or your “%windir%” is not “Windows”) Thank you. I see that file now using the standard Windows-10 tool (what is it called? a folder icon in the task bar?). The _etc_ folder does not show up with _cygwin_ tools like _ls_ or _find_, which is normally how I search for folders and files. Perhaps this means _etc_ is “hidden” but “standard tool” shows it whether I check “show/hide hidden items” or not. What gives? 😕 (As you can see, my knowledge of Windows is about Zero.) And even though _ls /cygdrive/c/Windows/System32/drivers_ does not show _etc_; I can type _ls /cygdrive/c/Windows/System32/drivers/etc_ and see _hosts_. 😕 The only non-commented non-blanks lines in _hosts_ are 0.0.0.0 [cdn.viglink.com](http://cdn.viglink.com) 0.0.0.1 [mssplus.mcafee.com](http://mssplus.mcafee.com) I’m guessing they’re OK. However checking _hosts_ was just one of several difficult/confusing steps in the How to Get rid of pwwysydh Virus instruction ( [Remove Pwwysydh.com Redirect (Chrome and Firefox)](http://www.virusresearch.org/remove-pwwysydh-com-redirect-chrome-firefox/) ). How do I decide which registry entries are troublesome? How do I decide which processes are “suspicious”? (When we wrote malware 30-odd years ago, we gave our processes names like _sh_ 🙂 ) I see a _Cortana_ which I’ve never knowingly used — should I kill it? ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/32 "2017-03-12T03:01:35Z")
Cortana is a MS search tool or something like that. The page showed a process name that looked like total gibberish (a lot of random characters). If you see nothing like that, the virus is probably not active. Look at the description part on the right, to see if that makes sense. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690.md?page=1)