This board is starting to scare me.

About This Message Board
1

Seriously guys, I don’t want to be afraid to visit this website. This place has been my favorite for close to 10 years now.

Somebody please get a handle on the vicious malware(?), that keeps f’n up my computer.

In the past 24hrs, I’ve had to do two hard reboots because this place froze up my computer. And I’ve got more virus protection than you can shake a stick at.

Geez!!

2

Keep in mind that I am not a computer person so read the reviews and decide if this is really for you.

You might try http://noscript.net/ if you have Firefox. It’s a plugin that blocks Javascript, Java, and Flash on almost all sites – and you choose which to allow (so it is guilty until proven innocent). I downloaded this early last week. Most of my popup and redirect trouble came from Google.com, so I made sure that that one was forbidden ASAP.

Most sites will be blocked in the beginning, so the page might look a bit weird (not too much usually) or something you know should be there is not there. If you click on something and it doesn’t work, then you’ll have to decide if you want to allow the scripts (forever or temporarily). Of course, this also means if you have trouble with something, you should check this plugin before assuming that the page itself is erroring.

3
  1. If you buy a membership, no ads. No ads, no viruses.
  2. If all your security is up and your computer is still getting infected, most likely it’s not a new infection; you didn’t get your computer clean. It’s the same old infection kicking up again.
  3. It’s unlikely that you got the virus on the SDMB. Our ads are from Google who has a vested interest in keeping its ads virus free, and in fact supplies ads to large sections of the rest of the internet as well. If Google ads were just brimming with viruses, they’d be shedding customers left and right.
  4. Most viruses don’t particularly want to be found. They do nefarious stuff out of sight. Making your computer shut down and break is because they’ve been running for a long time and have ate up all of your memory. What website you happen to be on at the time when that happens is random, if you’re even on the web at all. If you’re on the SDMB a lot, it might very well happen while you’re on the SDMB.
4

As per the other threads, there are several ad brokers the board contracts with. Also if you read the other threads it’s clear that quite knowledgable people are verifying the problems are coming via these brokers.

The only real solution at present is too block all the board’s ad brokers. Which is less than ideal.

5

Telling people they need to pay up in order to not have their computer infected by simply looking at a Web site is shameful. And untruthful in any case.

6

The truth is, the rubicon window is neither a virus nor an ad. It is a malfunctioning script.

7

Whatever it is, the multitudes of threads on these issues are, boiled down:
“The board is scaring me by doing things I don’t expect it to, and I’m afraid for my computer’s health.”

And the first point in the response was:
“You know, if you paid that wouldn’t happen to you.”

Which I pointed out was, and is, false.

Non-technical folks (including most of the users and apparently the mgmt.) don’t know what’s going on (when it’s happening) – malware, a virus, a malfunctioning script. They’re all unexpected and threatening looking, and when an unbidden window pops up to ask for a password, all but the most hard-core techies are going to be at least slightly concerned.

The SDMB: We’ll give you a virus if you don’t pay up! [sub]And malfunctioning scripts even if you do.[/sub]

8

And if that’s the case, why would you want to give your money to that kind of business?

9
  1. I’m not affiliated with the website, so how it could be shameful is beyond me to ken.
  2. I didn’t say that anyone needed to purchase a membership, I pointed out that if someone is worried about ads on the website, there is a way to get rid of the ads without cheating the website out of money. This is known as friendly and helpful advice.
10

I got the rubicon popup on imageshack a few times last night, so it’s not a Dope issue, it is rubicon having a massive phail.

11

Nobody would. Which is kinda my point – if the board is to make money, “pay up or this kind of thing might just keep happening, wink wink nudge nudge” probably won’t do wonders for member attraction or retention, not to mention driving more and more people, members or not, to block even the unobtrusive ads.

And I pointed out that the way to get rid of the nasty stuff without cheating the site out of money isn’t quite 100% effective.

My intended meaning wasn’t that saying pay up or else should be shameful to you specifically, and I apologize for not wording it more clearly. I meant that it’s a shameful position for the board to take in general – and frequently the default response when annoyance with ads is brought up.

12

We acknowledge that this is a problem and we’re trying to fix it. The ad in question comes through one of our brokers. We’re trying to establish which broker and which ad so we can make them stop it - we’re not supposed to be getting ads like this. While we’d like you to subscribe, it’s not our policy to make life miserable for nonsubscribers or render the site unusable. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to have this resolved soon.

13

I haven’t had problems with rubicon although I see that it is in the HTML when I do a view source in Firefox. However, given the number of comments and complaints about it, maybe you should make it go away and see if that helps?

14

Hmmmmm, I have experienced the window and I am a subscriber. I have to say the rubicon thing bothered me enough to run a complete scan of my system, delete all cached information, run hijackthis, etc… I pretty much figured you guys were tracking my SDMB browsing patterns to sell to some unnamed party.

15

We’re not tracking anything about you personally that I’m aware of. Why members should see anything from Rubicon is something I hope to establish tomorrow.

16

Sorry Ed, I misspoke in my post. What I should have said and meant to say is that I assumed some guys were tracking my SDMB browsing for some nefarious marketing purpose. I did not assume it was the reader or the Dope. Thus me checking my system; I thought I had picked up some spyware.

17

Firefox. AdBlock. FlashBlock. NoScript. End of issue.