Re: [PCWorks] A tip for stopping annoying harassing "slide-ups" (a kind of pop-up) immune to pop-up blockers
- From: David Grossman <dgrossman@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: pcworks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2008 10:36:45 +0200
This is a very useful and important tip, Clint. Thank you.
For those who are having difficulty finding it, the Restricted Sites area
that Clint mentioned is located at Tools - Options - Security - Restricted
Sites in my OE6.
Clint, I have a number of questions:
1. I see how to add a single line to the Restricted Sites, but I do not see
how to add multiple lines. How is that done?
2. Please explain how the Hosts file is better than the Restricted Sites -
or what is the difference between them.
3. Is there any advantage to having the restrictions in BOTH the Restricted
Sites and the Hosts file?
4. Can't malware also unprotect the Hosts file (by removing the Read Only
attribute) just as we humans can? Does the Read Only attribute really add
protection?
5. Does your hosts.zip file include the Spybot items? Can I just replace my
hosts file with yours?
6. Shouldn't a firewall block these intrusions from other websites? If so,
shouldn't we be making changes in our firewalls?
7. Hugh recommended a different file. Is there a way to merge your file,
Clint, with Hugh's?
8. When Spybot updates the Hosts file, does it just replace the file? If so,
then any additions from Clint and/or Hugh and/or mvps will be deleted.
David Grossman
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pcworks-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:pcworks-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Clint
> Hamilton-PCWorks Admin
> Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2008 5:50 AM
> To: PCWorks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [PCWorks] A tip for stopping annoying harassing
> "slide-ups" (a kind of pop-up) immune to pop-up blockers
>
>
> Most of the pop-up blockers we use won't stop many kinds of
> them. If you've gotten as fed up as I have with them, there's
> a couple of things you can do to wipe them out, site-by-site.
> I was getting infuriated with a particular "slide-ups" at some
> sites I frequent. As the name implies, they slide up in some
> sort of a slower animated form onto the webpage rather than a
> pop-up in a separate window, (this is why the pop-up blockers
> won't work on them), and always, as all of them, with some
> totally useless BS on them like "Hi, my name is [....] and I'm
> looking for a friend", from all those kinds of "cyber-terrorism"
> dating sites for example. (I fail to see why anyone with an
> otherwise legit website would want to contaminate their site
> with this kind of garbage).
>
> This is on IE, I'm not sure how to do this in FireFox. The
> first thing you can do is put the domain of the offending
> pop-up/slide-up in the Restricted Sites Zone. For those of you
> that don't know, as the name also implies with this it's a more
> restrictive zone than the default "Internet Zone" where many
> things are not allowed like various downloads, Cookies,
> redirects, scripts, etc. You should use these types of formats:
>
> BadDomain.com
> www.BadDomain.com
> *.BadDomain.com
>
> The *. should be inclusive of the www version since that's a
> wildcard, so it may tell you it's already listed in the zone, so
> add the www version before the wildcard version. The reason
> for the wildcard is that protects against ads.BadDomain.com,
> ad.BadDomain.com, banners.BadDomain.com, etc. If you
> make an error, it will tell you the correct formats it accepts.
>
> The other thing that works even better is to put the domain
> in your "hosts" file. (I don't know if FireFox uses the same
> file or not). You can search your HD for it, or it should be
> at the path "C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc". This is
> a read-only file, so you have to right click it, Properties,
> then uncheck "Read Only" > Apply > Ok. Then open it in
> Notepad. The domains listed in the file are in alphabetical
> order, so you have to search through it for the right spot.
> Note the locations of the www versions of the domains in
> the file, then do the same in the right spot with your
> offending domain. Then close out of the file saving it,
> and BE SURE to set it back to read-only!
>
> For those that don't know, the "hosts" file controls the
> websites visited on the host PC by not allowing access to
> them. By doing this, it also totally blocks anything that could
> come from the website, including bogus IM's and these
> kinds of annoying pop-ups & slide-ups.
>
> If anyone is not using a hosts file, or it's blank (and if so it
> means you're not using SpyBot which is bad), the format is
> like this:
>
> 127.0.0.1 www.BadDomain.com
> 127.0.0.1 BadDomain.com
>
> After adding numerous domains to my hosts file, I'm no
> longer bothered by these nuisances.
>
> To find the offending domain, if the whole thing is clickable
> just right click the slide-up/pop-up and "Copy shortcut"
> then paste it somewhere and you can see the domain.
> If the whole thing is not clickable, then just do this with
> a link in it. If you still can't find the domain, if "Copy
> shortcut" is grayed out or not there, then you'll have to
> click it. Just be sure to immediately click "Stop" to
> stop the page from loading, and you can get the domain
> URL from the address bar. (You don't want to give them
> any traffic or risk getting malware from their site on your
> PC).
>
> Like I mentioned above, SpyBot does a great job of
> modifying your hosts file. It adds many thousands of
> nefarious domains (about 4500+ so far) that protects
> your PC from anything from these domains. But it does
> indeed leave many out that should be added. If anyone
> wants to use mine, or see it to be sure your syntax or
> format is correct for anything you want to add, I've
> uploaded it and I'll leave it there for a few days.
> There's almost 10,000 lines in mine.
> http://www.orpheuscomputing.com/computers/hosts.zip
> -Clint
>
> God Bless
> Clint Hamilton, Owner
> http://www.OrpheusComputing.com
> http://www.ComputersCustomBuilt.com
>
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG.
Version: 7.5.549 / Virus Database: 270.9.9/1805 - Release Date: 11/22/2008
10:34 AM
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