Popup Ad on MeFi

June 28, 2003 3:18 PM

Am I the only one who has gotten a popup ad on the blue page?
posted by konolia to Bugs at 3:18 PM (16 comments total)

first, pay a visit to this site and then to ad-aware.
posted by MzB at 3:27 PM on June 28, 2003

And then switch to mozilla.
posted by jonson at 3:42 PM on June 28, 2003

Actually, I hear that they've stopped development on ad-aware, and that it's no longer current. Use Spybot Search & Destroy instead.
posted by gd779 at 3:56 PM on June 28, 2003

Actually, Ad-Aware is currently available and up to date.

Ad-aware went into hibernation for a while to work on a brand new version, but they've returned with the original Ad-Aware and some new variations.
posted by eyeballkid at 4:01 PM on June 28, 2003

The Google bar 2.0 thing has been working well as a popup blocker the last couple days.
posted by Hildago at 4:41 PM on June 28, 2003

My work PC's copy of IE has some kind of parasite that spews "favorite" icons all over my desktop every time it opens, as well as putting some in the start menu & favorites menu. That's partially what forced me to switch to mozilla, so I'm glad, but I am bothered that neither Ad Aware nor Spyboth seem to be able to remove the parasite.
posted by jonson at 5:25 PM on June 28, 2003

We HAVE spybot and run it every night in the wee hours of the morning. I'll check with the geeks in my family tho.
posted by konolia at 7:25 PM on June 28, 2003

Does Mozilla have an AOL connection? My husband seems to think so. And we have an irrational hatred for anything AOL around here. When their telemarketers call I tell them AOL stands for Almost On Line.

But I say it politely.
posted by konolia at 7:28 PM on June 28, 2003

There's nothing irrational about hating AOL, but in this case you shouldn't worry. Mozilla is an open source project which involves a number of Netscape (owned by AOL) employees but controls its own fate and features. If you download from mozilla.org you're getting the good stuff. I've been using it for years and I haven't seen a popup in that long. I have no idea what my friends are talking about when they complain about advertising making the Internet unusable. :-)
posted by Voivod at 7:34 PM on June 28, 2003

Or, even better, Mozilla Firebird.
posted by wackybrit at 8:06 PM on June 28, 2003

Mozilla Firebird crashed on install and seemed feature-poor. What's the advantage over plain vanilla Mozilla (which I'm using)?
posted by rushmc at 8:58 PM on June 28, 2003

Ad-muncher rocks.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:01 PM on June 28, 2003

Firebird is Mozilla without the IRC client, email program, html editor, kitchen sink and other assorted cruft (so I suppose it is feature-poor, in a way). The main advantage, for me, is that it's quicker, cleaner and focused on doing one thing well.

I don't know about ad-muncher, but privoxy also rocks.
posted by Zonker at 1:06 AM on June 29, 2003

You've probably had enough recommendations by now but if Adaware and the like don't solve the problem (adaware is not so good at detecting BHO's - Browser helper objects) then Hijack This! is small, simple and fast. It's excellent at displaying and deleting nasties. It also gives a good diagnostic view of the innards of your setup.
posted by grahamwell at 4:12 AM on June 29, 2003

i use privoxy and mozilla, and it's great (the scriptlet to turn it on and off is useful for some odd sites that won't let you post anonymously). however, ie doesn't seem that happy running through privoxy - it tends to drop images if there are many in a page (it's never bothered me enough to work out why - could be something i'm doing wrong).
posted by andrew cooke at 7:37 AM on June 29, 2003

grahamwell- thanks for the link to hijackthis. Parasiteware had written to my hosts file, and it hadn't occurred to me to check there, but hijackthis found it.
posted by theora55 at 8:36 AM on June 29, 2003