In the last couple of days a few times I’ve wanted to copy-and-paste text from websites (the source of which I intend to manually cite) into forum posts like this one - so, I highlight and copy, say, this text:
Pentax has unveiled a surprising design for its first mirrorless interchangeable lens camera, which features Pentax’s K-mount and a 16-megapixel APS-C sized sensor.
Pentax has unveiled a surprising design for its first mirrorless interchangeable lens camera, which features Pentax’s K-mount and a 16-megapixel APS-C sized sensor.
Looks like they are using a remotely-hosted Javascript to get your browser to do that. The script is: http://tcr.tynt.com/javascripts/Tracer.js (don’t worry it’s not malicious)
If you use any ad blocking software or Javascript blocking software, you can add that to your blacklist.
You could also edit your hosts file (This article is for Leopard - not sure if that’s what you have?) and add both http://tcr.tynt.com and http://asd.tynt.com to it, mapping them to 127.0.0.1 and the Javascript will stop working.
You’d get a Javascript error when visiting that page but I’m not sure how intrusive they are in Safari (they have always been shitty in IE but non-intrusive in Firefox).
It’s a variation on the technique I’ve seen for a decade, where you right-click, say on a picture, and it says something like “please don’t steal my content!” instead of the standard menu. Someone’s created a little java applet with the “On right-click” event or something like that. As mentioned above, disable Javascript, or customize the browser to ignore it… The lazier ones only work with IE, some have been scripted to work with all versions of the most popular browsers.
I’ve seen it occasionally, but only on less reputable sites. I’d be concerned the site is losing a ton of money if they think hijacking people’s computers and turning them into spammers is an acceptable method of advertising.
I also expect that Firefox will have a way to disable javascript’s ability to hijack your clipboard quite soon. This is stuff that people who even have adblock will object to, I believe. Spammers are considered the lowest of the low. No one wants to be one unless they are being paid for it.
Or how about: If you happen to run a web server on your own machine (or one somewhere that you control), you could put your own {htdocs or wherever}/javascripts/Tracer.js there, that essentially does nothing – but then you wouldn’t get any file-not-found errors.
As I’ve mentioned in many threads before, I simply run my browser with JavaScript disabled at all times except when I specifically know I’ll need it (like most or all on-line bill-paying sites), and I never miss it. A whole lot of stuff disappears or doesn’t work, and it’s almost entirely crap that I’m glad disappears or doesn’t work.
Question: That Daring Fireball article says that this code not only inserts that link into your cutting, but also phones home to tattle on you. Exactly when does this happen? When you cut the text to your clipboard? When you paste it? When somebody else opens or views the page containing your pasting? Or only when that somebody else actually clicks on that tracer link? As noted, it’s probably a good bet that most of these added links quickly get deleted as fast as the pasting person sees them.
Cracked articles do that same thing. I’ve always found it quite annoying when i’m trying to paste a snippet into a chatroom with a character limit per line.