Would you like to reconsider your answer?

[Geek King]

I had to go out to a remote site for a virus removal today. This was not the first time this particular user has had viruses, so I was a bit more stern with her than usual for me.

Me: "Look, you need to stay off sites with a lot of advertising. A lot of places are letting ads with viruses slip by."

User: "But I haven't been on the internet! I mean, just for work stuff, you know."

<I bring up her browser and hit a couple of buttons to bring up browser history>

Me: This is everything you've looked at for the past week. Is Kitty Hell really work related?

User: ...

Background Announcer: COUNTER FINISH! Flawless Victory!

[technical.angel]

Can you stick her on FF with Adblock plus?

[RestaurantDude]

... OR better yet, set up some parental control software and block those sorts of sites?

[Geek King]

I'm seriously considering putting her under full internet edict at this point. We don't really make a big deal out of a little surfing during slow times, but it seems like I'm out there once a month, even after the new, updated antivirus program I'm getting moved out to the sites. She seems to have a talent for finding sites that don't police their ad companies very well.

It also irritates me that she tried to lie to my face when she knows that I know she has done non-work surfing in the past. I'm crazy, not stupid.

[Andara Bledin]

Just a note about blocking ads: those "free" sites everybody visits often rely on ads to pay their bills.

^-.-^

[sld72382]

Just a note about blocking ads: those "free" sites everybody visits often rely on ads to pay their bills.

^-.-^

For every 2 that know about Adblock Plus, there's 10 that don't. I don't think it matters in the grand scheme of things.

[Andara Bledin]

Even if it's only 2 in 10 that use it, that's a 20% hit to a site's revenue stream. 1/5th of a company's cash is nothing to sneer at.

You may not think it matters, but some places are losing enough money that they are starting to feel it necessary to see if they can do something about it.

The results of the original experiment were a mixed bag, but a healthy dialogue resulted.

If you'd like to read the follow-up article about it, here's a link:
http://arstechnica.com/business/news...s-you-love.ars

^-.-^

[Geek King]

Even if it's only 2 in 10 that use it, that's a 20% hit to a site's revenue stream. 1/5th of a company's cash is nothing to sneer at.

Then they damn well better start doing a better job of holding their ad providers accountable. I don't care how good the site is if I keep getting virus warnings when I view the page. No antivirus solution is 100%, and I'm not willing to take chances when I get the same threat the last three times I was on the site.

I've seen good sites cut off their ads when that happens, and the ad providers tend to get their act together and tighten their reviewing standards. Else, the site goes with a company that doesn't harm their viewership.

[Darkforge]

I myself run FF with adblock, but I only block certain websites/ads

I don't mind the odd un-intrusive adds that are actually relevant to the site I'm visiting but once my virus checker spots a virus from the site then it gets adblocked and I send the site a nice little email sayign what the virus was and which banner ad sent it.

People who run websites need to be more responsible for the adverts they show, and its really refreshing when you notice that the ads have been taken down because of my email.

anyway, back to the orginal suck- why would you do such surfing at work? especially where they can check you're internet history?

One of our computers on the salesfloor upstairs got a piece of malware hiding as a fake virus scanner yesterday. We wiped it clean and installed an extra virus scanner on there. (Side: it is a computer with a few different users and is logged onto a generic account and is supposed to be used to confirm that addresses that the sales get are correct)

Today I've had no less than six calls from that desk because "something popped up and says i have a virus" each time its actually been our antivirus software and I've removed the virus along with warning that they have to be careful and not visit any websites other than the allowed list. does it make any difference?

what do you think?

[Jack]

A lot of rogueware is bundled with rootkits, so even if they obeyed you and stuck to work-related sites on that computer, the rogueware may have recurred by itself if you only removed what you saw on the surface. Did you use MBAM to quick scan and remove, then check for rootkits with gmer and Process Explorer? (To check with Process Explorer, enable lower pane view, switch lower pane view to DLLs, select processes such as System and explorer.exe (usually just those two are all you need to check), sort by Company, and look for unsigned gibberish or unfamiliar files hooked in those system processes. Remember gmer puts a random 8-character.sys in Temp so you'll see that if you run gmer first.)

[Andara Bledin]

No antivirus solution is 100%, and I'm not willing to take chances when I get the same threat the last three times I was on the site.

Did you take any time to tell the site what was happening? I'm willing to bet that there's a better than even chance they have no idea.

Hell, one of the sites I know where the owner is rabid about sucky advertisers has had rogue ads show up on his site and be a bitch to catch because it was part of a cycle of ads and he had to wait until he could be on when the offending add showed up. It took a week before he could actually confirm that what had been reported (by a single user) had actually happened at all. At which point he cut off the entire advertising line until they cleaned up what they were serving. And he only got away with that because he has as part of his advertising contract that he uses.

If you only run a blacklist, that's not so bad.

But if you block all ads everywhere, you are pretty much stealing bandwidth.

[edit to add]

As an aside, I don't use ad-blockers (obviously). I also visit some highly suspect websites on a fairly random basis. Oddly, I've yet to have an ad do anything beyond annoying the ever-living hell out of me (pop-overs and overlays are the ultimate in online ad evil). If your people are getting actual viruses, it's most likely because they're clicking on shit. I have yet to discover a method by which you can break a clueless user of the overwhelming need they seem to have to click shit they shouldn't.

^-.-^

[sld72382]

....snip....

But if you block all ads everywhere, you are pretty much stealing bandwidth.

....snip....

^-.-^

Oh please. I love it when people become apologists for faceless entities (in this case websites). This is not aimed directly at you really, I just don't get why people feel the need to put a faceless entity's needs ahead of their own.

I am proud to say that unless the site in question absolutely positively requires me turning off the ad and script blocking to view it, I'm leaving my AdBlock Plus and NoScript turned ON thank you very much. Choking their revenue stream? Come on. They can get their money from someone else who is interested in clicking on the ads. Plus it makes the page load a lot faster.

And BTW people do get viruses just by viewing a website with rogue ads. You don't have to click on them, many rogue ads have malicious code injected in them that can try to initiate a drive-by download or popup that takes people by surprise.

Okay, end rant....

[Andara Bledin]

Oh please. I love it when people become apologists for faceless entities (in this case websites). This is not aimed directly at you really, I just don't get why people feel the need to put a faceless entity's needs ahead of their own.

The vast majority of websites I visit are owned by people, not corporations.

People who pay money to keep their sites running and for which a 10% drop in ad revenue would knock them offline.

And even if I did only visit massive faceless corporations, why does that give me the right to use their resources and expect that it should be all just hunky-dory that I circumvent their coding that generates them revenue because I don't feel like dealing with it?

That's actually a standard SC tactic. "Big corporation has lots of money, so it shouldn't matter that I don't play by the rules everyone else is expected to."

^-.-^

[Ree]

Excuse me, but if you want to debate the ethics of blocking ads on websites then take it to fratching.
This thread is about a person who is obviously visiting unapproved sites that are clearly not related to her job, and getting viruses on the computer in the process.

[sld72382]

Excuse me, but if you want to debate the ethics of blocking ads on websites then take it to fratching.
This thread is about a person who is obviously visiting unapproved sites that are clearly not related to her job, and getting viruses on the computer in the process.

Sorry about that.