"drive cleaner" ads

[csdenmark]

Could you try this URL in IE and see if it produces ads ?

 

 

http://online.bridgebase.com/prod/ads/location2.html

 

This is something I wrote, and all it does is cycle between a couple of BBO ads.

 

if running *this* one in IE produces a popup for that weird product, then would be very interesting data (since this one doesnt involve the ad network at all)

 

This other URL DOES use the ad network

 

http://online.bridgebase.com/prod/ads/location1.html

 

What i'd love to know is how each one behaves, independent of the other

 

Thanks for the help ..

 

U

http://online.bridgebase.com/prod/ads/location2.html

This one produces nothing but text cyclus.

 

http://online.bridgebase.com/prod/ads/location1.html

This one did the same but once I was lucky Drivecleaner commercial turned up. Then nothing more happened. No message of any kind of blocking.

 

As the Drivecleaner commercial came up I noticed a yellow triangel at the bottom of left corner. I dont know what it means as no text came up setting pointer to it.

[geller]

Confirmation: Location 1 is guilty!

[barmar]

Claus, must we really see the enormous ad for your web site every time you post? This is the third time in this thread. There is probably no law against it, but I am with Richard on this topic. Bad taste is the term I would use .... unless you pay for the advertisement, of course.

 

Roland

Do what I do -- set your forum preferences so you don't see signatures. I've never seen Claus's (apparently obnoxious, since two posters commented on it) ad.

[uday]

For the three of us who see the drivecleaner ads:

 

If you have another browser to try, could you try location 1 in a browser other than IE?

 

No one is admitting ownership of these pesky popups; it is possible that they are a symptom of malware on the victims pc. of course, our ad network rep might be wrong, and they might be sneaking past their own tests by masquerading as something else.

[jw_nl]

Uday,

I have seen the DriveCleaner ad with Firefox running immediately after starting location 1 yesterday. I stopped running Firefox then.

 

On my 3 PC's I have seen these DC ads many times now (20+).

Sometimes I can't see why they show up, but I think that it might be a good idea to focus on the Travelocity ad or the software that runs that ad. When that ad is starting on location1 it's almost always bingo. Unfortunately the ratio Forums, ACBL, The Bridge World, Kensington, Travelocity is about 15:15:15:1:1 so I have to wait very long sometimes before my patience is rewarded. Please change the 2 minutes per ad in a short interval or even better make a location3 next to location1 with only the Travelocity part of location1.html. I think that I will have to wait less than 2 minutes then.

 

On location2 I have never seen the Kensington and Travelocity ads. Comparing location1 and location2 wasn't possible sofar.

 

To people who like to join our DC-fanclub (3 members now): When the DC ad shows up click Cancel and then close the browser window immediately. Otherwise DC will keep you in an endless loop. Clicking Cancel / No and so on will only be followed by other DC suggestions to download DC.

 

By the way : I have never seen the complete Travelocity ad. At the end the ad is flickering. Is that happening only on my PC?

[geller]

If you have another browser to try, could you try location 1 in a browser other than IE?

Tried location 1 it with Mozilla Firefox for about 15 min. No popups.

 

No one is admitting ownership of these pesky popups; it is possible that they are a symptom of malware on the victims pc. of course, our ad network rep might be wrong, and they might be sneaking past their own tests by masquerading as something else.

I'm belaboring the obvious, but even a cursory search with google confirms that DriveCleaner is not a product with the world's greatest reputation. (Whether this is unfair to them or is an accurate reflection of reality may be debatable.) That means, to me at least, that they're starting out with two strikes against them (possibly unfairly).

 

All I know is (1) I'd never had DriveCleaner popups before, (2) I get driveCleaner popups now is when I'm logged onto BBO with ads enabled or when I'm accessing location 1 with IE; (3) I don't get the DriveCleaner popups now that I'm not accessing location 1 or BBO (if this ever changes I'll post it right away).

 

In view of the above, I think the chance that DriveCleaner is innocent is even less than the chance OJ didn't do it. Maybe I'm wrong though, but if so I'd like some hard evidence.

[csdenmark]

In view of the above, I think the chance that DriveCleaner is innocent is even less than the chance OJ didn't do it.  Maybe I'm wrong though, but if so I'd like some hard evidence.

No Drivecleaner is not innocent here. I have reported 2 serious scriptfauls by Drivecleaner and also reported that my security settings not only warns me entering but completely disables my options to do so. Therefore Drivecleaner is not harmful to me - they are in fact completely harmless.

 

But I would say they are some kind of fools. With solid security settings it will produce nothing for them and is pure waste of money. They simply need to look over their programming features.

[uday]

i've removed the travelocity ad. I'm unsure where to go with all this, but lets see if that helped.

[geller]

i've removed the travelocity ad. I'm unsure where to go with all this, but lets see if that helped.

I've been running location 1 using IE for two hours, with no popups. So unless I get the popups from now on when I'm not logged onto BBO or looking at "location 1" I will tentatively conclude that the Travelocity ad was the culprit.

 

Incidentally,

(1) Uday explained to me by email that BBO did not accept any ads from DriveCleaner (so however they popped up--now seems to me this was somehow connected to the Travelocity ad--this was not a conscious decision by BBO).

(2) There is a technique called exit popups. The Travelocity ad might have contained an exit popup script. Can someone check the HTML source code for the Travelocity ad to see if this was the case?

[jw_nl]

I have been running location1 using 8 copies of IE for 15 hours (3 PC's) .

I have been running location2 using 2 copies of IE for 15 hours (2 PC's) .

 

No DriveCleaner popups.

[geller]

But I would say they are some kind of fools. With solid security settings it will produce nothing for them and is pure waste of money. They simply need to look over their programming features.

The people who visit this Forum are unlikely to click on the DriveCleaner ads, let alone to install the product. But there are probably plenty of people (including some less computer-savvy BBO users) who would click on the ad and install DriveCleaner (if their business model didn't yield some customers they wouldn't still be in business). So I hope the cause of the problem can be identified and the problem can be eliminated before 4.9.9 goes into general release.

[jikl]

QUOTE 

But I would say they are some kind of fools. With solid security settings it will produce nothing for them and is pure waste of money. They simply need to look over their programming features. 

 

The people who visit this Forum are unlikely to click on the DriveCleaner ads, let alone to install the product. But there are probably plenty of people (including some less computer-savvy BBO users) who would click on the ad and install DriveCleaner (if their business model didn't yield some customers they wouldn't still be in business). So I hope the cause of the problem can be identified and the problem can be eliminated before 4.9.9 goes into general release.

 

Exactly Geller, just because it won't affect you is not the reason to not care about it. In fact that is a rather selfish position that I have seen from many people over the years.

 

Sean

[geller]

Four days ago Uday wrote:

So far, two of us have reported the aggressive popup from Drivecleaner.

 

Our ad supplier says it isnt them. So we're trying to figure out where this came from. is it possible that both the reporters were infected with similar malware prior to this beta? That our ad supplier is mistaken, or is being misleading ? That a third party (program, proxy, isp ) is intercepting and replacing the ads?

 

Anyway, please let us know if this happens again, while we check this out.

 

Just for the record, except when I was logged onto BBO or "location 1" a few days ago (when the Travelocity ad was running) there have been no popups on my machine (neither DriveCleaner nor any others). Also, as I noted above, MicrosoftDefender and AdawareSE say my machine is clean. So I tentatively will eliminate the first of Uday's hypotheses (that my machine is infected with Malware). But if there's anyone here who knows how to read HijackThis logs, I'll be happy to send one for further checking.

 

Anyway, it appears from Claus's comments that the Travelocity ad had a script of some kind (or this was intercepted en route) that caused the DriveCleaner popups. If Uday makes any further progress I hope he'll let us know what he found.

 

Anyway, as these kinds of popups could really vex unsophisticated users I hope they can be gotten rid of from now on.

[julie5607]

Hi Geller,

 

It's not perfect but this a good place to start - here is a link to an online hijackthis analyzer that I have used with good results. Simply run HJT, creating a log, and copy and paste the log into the textbox.

 

http://www.hijackthis.de/

 

 

Julie

[geller]

Hi Julie,

 

Thanks for the tip. I checked. No malware. This confirms what WindowsDefender and AdAwareSE already said.

 

-Bob Geller

[csdenmark]

I certainly dont know exactly why some can access the site and I am prevented from that.

 

I have default settings for Internet Explorer with the exception that I have checked a few extra boxes regarding pop-up blocking. As the scriptfaults are reported by Internet Explorer - which as standard ignores harmless scriptfaults - then the 2 ones reported must be serious. As I receive a warning sign and is prevented from entering that site indicates Drivecleaner is assumed to be high risk zone.

 

There are 3 options to be blocked. Via add-on, via phising-filter, via pop-up blocker. I see the phising bar is moving when I enter a site but it would be logic to check something before entering. I think it is therefore the most likely option that Drivecleaner is caught by phising-filter.

[geller]

It turns out there's an outfit with a rather bad reputation running a website called vipfares.com . They are currently being sued for various sleazy tactics, including popup ads. Apparently they have a past history of hijacking other company's ads and using scripts to launch popups of the type being discussed here on this thread. I wonder if these guys are responsible for the popups being discussed on this thread.