Insert the Link Trick

[T-Man]

Recently I was in game garage and tried a new game. It was a mistake that took me to another site and started giving me downloads. i got out of it or thought I did.It was from GAme Advance. What happened later is that I was posting on another forum. After I posted I noticed that two words were underlined. Hmmm Guess what they were links to Game Advance(BOOOOO). So I went back and mispelled the words, and the links dissappeared. I spent the rest of the time with my firewall, Norton and Control panel and dealt with the culprits. Just thought I would let you know this happened to me. I have never seen this before. Hopefully I got it all.

[stationmaster]

A game link that is a spambot? Thanks for the heads up. he grandkids are allowed to download games on one of our computers, an old Compaq that we kept for them to use. I is not connected to our network router other than being hardwired to the provider.

I will make a note and stick it to the monitor, not allowing them to access the site. I probably should add them to the "blacklist" in the security systems too.

Thanks, T-Man.

Bob

[tworail]

This is known as Contextual Advertising. As an example, if this forum had it enabled, the following:

model trains (http://www.modeltrains.com)

Would be a link to something related to model trains. If you notice certain words or phrases underlined on sites you visit, in particular forums, it's contextual advertising links.

[tankist]

i'd keep away from sites like that altogether.
but generaly firefox with noScript and Adblockplus extensions are very good with stuff like that. add ccleaner and you half way safe.

and not to start anything but IMHO, norton is poor software. on top of doing very little good it gives user the impression of safety while in reality it provides very little more then tying up your CPU cycles and disrupting your work. not saying "uninstall it now" but rather "just so you know, it provides very little in terms of security".
just my 2 cents. feel free to disregard :)

[T-Man]

Thanks for the advice you sound like my daughter. Firefox, No Norton, I got CCleaner and like it. Also she likes Avast!

[stationmaster]

I use AVG, AdBlock Plus, and SpyBot Search and Destroy. Add those to FireFox and the Winows Defender in Vista, I feel pretty secure. The computer goes ballistic if anything tries to enter or corrupt it.

Bob

[tankist]

i don't really care which browser to use. i can use IE as well as FF but the latter can have add in modules. one of them is adblock plus which cuts down most ad banners. it originated in country that charges for internet according to used bandwidth. so its not only that adds are annoying, one living in such country has actually to pay extra because he sees them. and when there is a need, there is a way :)

as far as security no software can replace safe browsing habits. not clicking o on banners and not visiting add ridden game sites, portals and such is IMHO of them. chances are that most of them are safe but what if not? i'm not taking chances. it happens that will want to go to sites with boobies (well i admit it i do at a times). but for that kind and any other unsafe browsing i use virtual machine. if anything goes wrong i just reload saved version of this machine and i'm done. i have one for testing purposes as well. it takes lots of ram but today 50$ buys 2gb of highend memory, i see why not to have at least that much

[tankist]

I feel pretty secure. The computer goes ballistic if anything tries to enter or corrupt it.

Bob
its a good start but i wouldn't feel secure. just my 2 cents. there is no bulet proof solution today and i doubt there ever will.
maybe i'm paranoic but i sit near fraud prevention and handling department guys (i work for one of the largest stock trading sites) so i hear stories...