-=PCTechTalk=- Re: Stop Badware - virus?

Thanks for posting this, Glenn!

In my opinion, this is a perfect example of a company apparently trying to 
do the right thing, but WAY overstepping the boundaries of control.  There 
are SO many AV and AM programs flagging tons of false positives (harmless 
files being flagged as malware) and I cannot imagine Google/StopBadware 
doing much better with it.

If you get hit with this and you absolutely KNOW that the site is not 
malicious (like microsoft.com, for instance), physically type the address 
into the address bar and press Enter to get around it.  If you're not sure 
about a site that get's flagged (i.e. a favorite site you've used for years 
that's suddenly flagged for no apparent reason), investigate the badware 
claim before proceeding.  One of the best ways to investigate these types of 
claims is to use the search terms "sitename.ext badware" (replace sitename 
with the actual site's domain name, including the .com, .net, .org, etc., 
but nothing else - microsoft.com, for example) and see what comes up. 
You'll likely find a bunch of forum posts with others questioning the same 
thing.  Ignore those and only look for official statements from trusted 
sources about the validity of the malware claim.

Peace,
Gman

"The only dumb questions are the ones we fail to ask"

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Glenn Folkvord - PlanetOrigo.com" <glenn@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2009 5:01 PM
Subject: -=PCTechTalk=- Stop Badware - virus?


> Hey gang,
>
> The most peculiar thing happened today.
>
> I rebooted my computer and started Firefox up. When I searched for 
> something
> with Google, every search result has a line with the words "This website
> might harm your computer" (in Norwegian, but words to that effect) added 
> to
> it. When I click on the search result, I came to a Google warning page, 
> and
> from there I cant click on.
>
> There were links to Google support pages, but no way to reach the search
> result. I couldnt even google to find out what this thing was.
>
> Then I went to see "Australia" (the film) with my girlfriend and came back 
> a
> few hours later. Everything was back to normal! And on Wikipedia they made
> this entry:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StopBadware.org#Google_and_Badware
>
> Hmm.....
>
> Greetings from Glenn Folkvord 

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