Spyware on the Guild?

**Ben** · 12-01-2005, 11:13

Hello

I recently installed SpybotSD and now whenever I come here to the Guild I get alerts that something called Avenue A has been blocked from downloading onto my computer. Could one of the moderators explain what it is and why it's on this forum?

Thanks.

**lugh** · 12-01-2005, 11:39

Hi, and welcome!
I've never been warned about Avenue A on the Org. On MSN, sure, not here though. I use Spybot too, but I've some custom settings so maybe that's it...
Someone might have a better idea, but as far as I know Avenue A isn't strictly speaking spyware. It's to do witht the advertising, installs a cookie, and only a cookie, so the company knows how many people click on the ad. I presume it's tied to revenue, I don't know wether the site is supported per click or not though.

**Seasoned Alcoholic** · 12-01-2005, 23:50

Originally Posted by lugh

It's to do witht the advertising, installs a cookie, and only a cookie, so the company knows how many people click on the ad. I presume it's tied to revenue, I don't know wether the site is supported per click or not though.

Sounds like a tracking cookie from your description there lugh.

I'm getting AOL spam pop-ups appearing quite regularly when I visit the ORG, its a bit worrying since I'm using Mozilla Firefox

Since its got a built-in pop-up blocker, nothing should pop-up in the first place - might have to download the latest patch...

**Just A Girl** · 12-02-2005, 00:00

im telling you guys,
Get kerio personal fire wall,
Even if you haft to AHEM Reinstall it after the trial period runs out, to keep blocking pop ups adds and unwanted web pages its worth it,
However if your on a network like i am
You would need to buy the full verison to allow gate way mode, I beleve its worth every penny.

(the trial will work on a networked pc that is not the host pc without hindering the network)

it works well,
i get no popups,
no adds at the bottom.
and if any thing i dont want to happen, happens.
i can easily use kerio to make shure it wont happen again.

**Seasoned Alcoholic** · 12-02-2005, 00:09

Originally Posted by Just A Girl

Get kerio personal fire wall

I've heard a lot of raves about Zone Alarm firewall...

And for an anti-spyware / adaware program I use Ad-Aware SE Personal, does a cracking job

I lost faith in Microsoft Internet Explorer years ago, its just way too easy to exploit. I don't trust Google Toolbar either, something I'd read in the installation / setup / terms and conditions put me right off.

**Just A Girl** · 12-02-2005, 00:19

All tool bars are Spy ware IMHO,
i dont advize installing them

**ezoons** · 12-02-2005, 01:15

ZoneAlarm & Proxomitron Naoko.
Have been using this combo for 3 years - no complaints. I haven't seen a banner, let alone a pop-up in ages (unless I switch off the Proxo filters - some pages use pop-ups for useful stuff).

**lugh** · 12-02-2005, 22:27

Yeah, a tracking cookie. Still, from what I read it only tracks the click on the ad, nothing else.

I use:Spybot, Ad-aware, Zonealarm firewall, SpywareBlaster and then Privacy Mantra and CCleaner to get rid of tracks and Hijack this every now and then to do a full read of the registry since none of the programs can catch everything.
Oh and Winpatrol to catch registry edits since Spybot can miss some of them as they happen too.

**Seasoned Alcoholic** · 12-03-2005, 11:40

It gets really annoying IMO when companies, agencies etc pass your email address (bet they charge each other for this) around the web to third parties. Then you get the direct spam mail from <Hell>, it just never stops once you end up on their mailing lists. The filtering and blocking settings do a decent job at catching most things, but it never catches them all, s'pose this is impossible. They always change the wording of their email addresses - most are some random code of digits and letters anyway.

I've sort of defeated this problem by setting up literally half-a-dozen email accounts with different providers to avoid this problem. Think only one of these gets any serious spam on a daily basis, so its not all bad

**Kaldhore** · 12-05-2005, 00:12

I used the free version of Zone Alarm till around about 3 months ago. Then I upgraded - there was an offer on at my local pc world for ZA professional - dudes its great. Especially the email spam filter. It also has a good AV (no norton asimilating MY PC and cause all to crash). Theres a pop-up blocker and a spy/ad/tracker scanner too. I wholeheartedly recommend it.

I run a wireless network from this pc too.