# What's up with these new green links... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 25, 2013, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-new-green-links/677140 "2013-12-25T09:06:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-new-green-links/677140/1 "2013-12-25T09:06:57Z")
…I see popping everywhere? They have a double underscore and I see them here & in lots of other sites. Funny thing is, I’ll sometime write/post something w/out linking to anything and yet they still come up. Don’t get it – is this some new ‘feature’ of Windows, the 'net or what? Or, as I am afraid it’s some kind of malware as the links go to a “win an Ipad” or somesuch BS – yet they go nowhere, just a blank page. Thanks in advance. Puzzled. ---
**Author:** ![HardlySanguine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HardlySanguine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HardlySanguine)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-new-green-links/677140/2 "2013-12-25T09:19:59Z")
Yeah, malware. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=538187](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=538187) ---
**Author:** ![blue\_infinity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_infinity/32/2817_2.png) [@blue\_infinity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blue_infinity)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-new-green-links/677140/3 "2013-12-25T09:41:27Z")
Nope, [intellitxt](http://junkseller.hubpages.com/hub/The-Annoying-Internet-Part-1). ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-new-green-links/677140/4 "2013-12-25T10:01:42Z")
> [@blue\_infinity](#): > > Nope, [intellitxt](http://junkseller.hubpages.com/hub/The-Annoying-Internet-Part-1). Thanks. This was driving me nuts, as I ran all of my filters/blockers and none of them picked it up. It seems your link solves the issue. Man, are there some asshole time-wasters on-line! Screw them sidewides. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-new-green-links/677140/5 "2013-12-25T10:08:47Z")
PS – both my “Charter” name and “Funny thing” written in my OP show as those darn green double underscore “links”! WTF?! ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-new-green-links/677140/6 "2013-12-25T11:03:08Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > PS – both my “Charter” name and “Funny thing” written in my OP show as those darn green double underscore “links”! > > WTF?! Displaying intellitxt on pages is a choice made by individual Web sites. I seriously doubt that the SDMB would use intellitxt, and I certainly have never seen it used here. I’d say there’s a 95% chance that this is some sort of malware infecting your browser and a 5% chance that it’s your Internet service provider that is inserting these links in pages you visit (in which case it would deserve to burn in hell for all eternity). Start using a diferent Web browser and see if you see the same green links. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-new-green-links/677140/7 "2013-12-25T12:29:23Z")
> [@Heracles](#): > > Displaying intellitxt on pages is a choice made by individual Web sites. I seriously doubt that the SDMB would use intellitxt, and I certainly have never seen it used here. > > I’d say there’s a 95% chance that this is some sort of malware infecting your browser and a 5% chance that it’s your Internet service provider that is inserting these links in pages you visit (in which case it would deserve to burn in hell for all eternity). > > Start using a diferent Web browser and see if you see the same green links. This was really bizarre – after 20 years on the Internet I don’t think I ever found something similar. Anyway, I checked my add-ons on all of my three browsers and although I am a default Firefox user, found three/four extrange extensions on Chrome. Deleted them and the problem is gone. This site was very helpful: [**Blocking Intellitxt**](http://superuser.com/questions/488648/blocking-intellitxt-random-ad-links-on-browsers) Hope this thread helps others with this extremely annoying issue. Many thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2013, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-new-green-links/677140/8 "2013-12-26T16:08:53Z")
> [@Heracles](#): > > … and a 5% chance that it’s your Internet service provider that is inserting these links in pages you visit … I seriously doubt this. I write code for “edge” routers for a major manufacturer, and not only do we not have any such feature, implementing a feature like this would seriously degrade performance, requiring service providers to buy many times more gear – and this is remarkably expensive gear (possible to spend US$1M on one router). Perhaps it’s possible downstream, but the downstream devices tend to be much simpler, and managing a service like this close to the customer would be a nightmare. I put the likelihood at 0% or maybe even 0.0%. It’s definitely possible. The question is whether it’s economically feasible, and whether the feature exists in typical equipment, today. [Here](http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/12/canadian-isp-tests-injecting-content-into-web-pages/) is a report about a case where a Canadian ISP was testing the possibility of inserting javascript into HTTP datastreams to provide a popup when a customer is nearing the bandwidth limit. I don’t know enough about WCCP, but it’s conceivable that a web cache service could be doing something like this. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2013, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-new-green-links/677140/9 "2013-12-26T16:31:45Z")
I just fixed this problem for my mom yesterday. She had some malware installed on her computer somehow, called something like “Webex Enhanced”. A virus scan didn’t fix it, but it turned out she could just uninstall it, in “add or remove programs” in the control panel. Might want to check your browser and make sure it didn’t install a toolbar or addon or something as well. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2013, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-new-green-links/677140/10 "2013-12-26T17:14:12Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > I seriously doubt this. I write code for “edge” routers for a major manufacturer, and not only do we not have any such feature, implementing a feature like this would seriously degrade performance, requiring service providers to buy many times more gear – and this is remarkably expensive gear (possible to spend US$1M on one router). Perhaps it’s possible downstream, but the downstream devices tend to be much simpler, and managing a service like this close to the customer would be a nightmare. I put the likelihood at 0% or maybe even 0.0%. > > It’s definitely possible. The question is whether it’s economically feasible, and whether the feature exists in typical equipment, today. [Here](http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/12/canadian-isp-tests-injecting-content-into-web-pages/) is a report about a case where a Canadian ISP was testing the possibility of inserting javascript into HTTP datastreams to provide a popup when a customer is nearing the bandwidth limit. > > I don’t know enough about WCCP, but it’s conceivable that a web cache service could be doing something like this. Wow! Had no idea it could cost that high, that’s nuts! – thus almost sure it wasn’t my internet provider. > [@DrCube](#): > > I just fixed this problem for my mom yesterday. She had some malware installed on her computer somehow, called something like “Webex Enhanced”. A virus scan didn’t fix it, but it turned out she could just uninstall it, in “add or remove programs” in the control panel. Might want to check your browser and make sure it didn’t install a toolbar or addon or something as well. Yeah, that’s similar to what I did – I sort of played it by ear & found all the malware/troublesome extensions on Chrome. Freaking green links are finally gone!