Another Reason To Give Up Ie

[lizard808uk]

ok, I admit I went to a couple of dodgy sites and got some serials (who doesnt and I can't afford Director anyway) Anyway, cut a long story short, using IE it automatically downloaded this "1on1.exe" , which has been a pain in the posterior for several days. The sneaky little $%$%££ dumps your connection and attempts to dial premium rate numbers to access I dont-know-what . It also flashes up dodgy crap on your screen as well.

Anyway this is just a heads up since reading the security pages this is quite a new thing.

DON'T USE IE!

Thankfully my Windows installation is "contained" and not too much could happen from it. Wheres my Linux cds....

EDIT: I've since got the serials I need from work since its kind of work related, I think this ends my dalliance with the Internet "underworld"

 

[Delsabre]

If you go into Internet Options and turn off all of the automatic downloads things like that won't happen.

But still, its better to just switch browsers.

 

[lizard808uk]

Thanks for that. I'll do that (but not going back to IE)

 

[kknd_cf]

We got owned by one of those dialers when we were on 56k. Took £70+ of us. My FDad took it up with some complaints department and we got all our money back . But the autodialer never popped up. That's the weird part. Also he's gone onto the phone company so we can't dial those high rate numbers anymore .

 

[Axeman]

When I worked in PC world, used to get people complaining to uys all the time about this. Funny thing was, they often didn;t know they were associated with 'dodgy' sites, and stopped making a fuss whrn they noticed everyone was watching them

 

[Rico]

Oh come on, it usually asks you to download a program or active x plugin to get the serials you want - solution, go to another site. If it was covertly installed, well, it's clearly not your fault. With all the porn ads on those kind of sites, though, you should definitely be wary.

 

[finty]

do dialers affect adsl users? it wont work on mine any way cause we have premium numbers banned.

 

[Rico]

Impossible for me, I use cable and have no phone connection. ADSL will also block arbitrary use of dialup, I -think-. Either way you should hear it...

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

Actually Rico, most of them will NOT ask you. Thats the whole point, they install it (and sometimes run it) behind your back. Firefox is too secure to allow something as obvious a security leak as that, however IE allows it without problem. And even with the settings set to not automatically download, they STILL WILL. There are ways arround that in IE.

Your lucky, my sisters boyfriend was over here for LAN gaming, and went to a site for something similar (to get a serial for software that he owned and lost the original serial) and JUST going to the website it installed 3 dialers, changed his homepage, gave him 3 or 4 bookmarks, put a nice little ad on the IE bar, and contained about 7 popups. And thats just everything we KNOW about. And this is with paranoid IE security settings. I showed him Firefox (firebird then) and he changed immediatly. Went back to that page in Firefox, and....nothing, no popups, no additional bookmarks, no porn dialers, nothing.

Now you can say "well just dont goto those sites", well for one, it wasnt the site that did all that, it was a popup on the site. Two, you dont know what sites will do that and will not until you try. It could be an honest looking site about puppies and do the very same thing, although you have more of a chance in the underground sites. And Third, thats not the point, you shouldnt have to avoid things like that, it shouldnt be allowed to happen in the first place.


I think the name of this thread should be change, it could possibly bring in flames from IE fans.

 

[Steve-O]

theres one nice safe serial site I like it but cant share it here

 

[Huxley]

Actually Rico, most of them will NOT ask you. Thats the whole point, they install it (and sometimes run it) behind your back. Firefox is too secure to allow something as obvious a security leak as that, however IE allows it without problem. And even with the settings set to not automatically download, they STILL WILL. There are ways arround that in IE.

No, they just target IE. I'm sure if the virus coders wanted to hack Firefox, Opera or whater they could do so quite easily. Problem is, it just doesn't have the size of userbase that IE enjoys so they're not going to waste their time with it.

 

[NssOne]

Shrug, I solved the problem easily - got Ad-Aware with Ad-watch. Ad-watch pops up if annything is attempted to be installed on your system and lets you choose between accepting it and blocking it.

 

[Ernest]

Best thing to do is get urself a firewall, i had the exact same problem, now ive got a firewal. Problem solved!

 

[Rico]

Actually Rico, most of them will NOT ask you. Thats the whole point, they install it (and sometimes run it) behind your back. Firefox is too secure to allow something as obvious a security leak as that, however IE allows it without problem. And even with the settings set to not automatically download, they STILL WILL. There are ways arround that in IE.

Please. I'm not that stupid. I said 'if it was covertly installed..' - I'm fully aware it can be. However if you keep yourself updated then the chances of a site employing a very recent patch to install ActiveX when you have security settings extremely high is low. I'm not saying that's good, because some people don't want to update all the time, especially if they're on 56k. But the 'ways around it' are usually only good for users who refuse to use windows update for whatever reason, or in the couple of weeks between exploit disclosure and patch (but advertising companies are often slower than that)

Anyways... Huxley is correct, ActiveX code runs on IE only and is the most common way to install stuff on your PC. Other executables run on Windows only. I'm sure similar exploits will be found for Firefox once it gets larger userbase, although it'll be patched faster. We just have to hope that users upgrade as much as well.

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

You guys misinterpret the size of the Firefox userbase. Not to mention It uses the same engine and core as Netscape and Mozilla. Which (netscape atleast) has been arround LONGER than IE has. So you have to factor both of those browsers and any other browser that contains the same code and engine into it. Which totals a userbase to rival even IE.

The simple fact is that its too secure, they dont let you do ANYTHING without user interaction, sure there might be a way to tunnel through something in them, if you spend a good amount of time trying to find some little tiny leak, but this leak will be fixed in a matter of hours, where as the leaks in IE, ARE STILL THERE. Its like microsoft just doesnt want to fix these things. Firefox, mozilla, etc.. were all designed SPECIFICALLY from the ground up, for security. Ease of use and features were always secondary. Security in IE on the otherhand, seems an afterthought.

I wasnt claiming you were stupid rico, not in the least bit, I was just stating that out of the hundreds of things I had installed on my PC via IE over the years, the only things that actually asked me, were signed plugin downloads like flash, lanugage packs, and one downloader. Everything else, all the nasty things, tunneled right through, and I always had super paraniod settings in IE, everything that wasnt nessesary to run pages was disabled (or enabled if it was a security option).

 

[mattmagoo]

Just got firefox and it quicker than IE6 + there is no horizontal scrolling

 

[lizard808uk]

It was like a super secret special ninja stealth covert hidden download that just inextricably trickled through IE and then Whump... there it is... (anyone remember that track??) some woman with a plastic implement and an expression on her face that said a thousand words. The annoying thing was being dumped off the internet and having my modem trying to dial stuff that it can't (I'm on b/band).

I mostly use Moz now, since my email is on the web anyway and I have enough of that netsky.pants.growupandstopfillingmyboxwithjunk stuff to last a lifetime.

Oh yeh and the problem with having high security settings is you cant log into Yahoo to check mail; I also have a firewall its just IE is PANTS. Thats.. P...A...N...T..S - Never going to touch it again. No never.

I hope none of this fine community has got this file.. it'll really f^&^& up your day!

 

[Steve-O]

Shrug, I solved the problem easily - got Ad-Aware with Ad-watch. Ad-watch pops up if annything is attempted to be installed on your system and lets you choose between accepting it and blocking it.

yea, but thats things slowing your PC Down

 

[thebluenewt]

Used IE for 8 years and never had anything install itself, I always get a pop-up message so I don't know what weird security settings you lot must have!

 

[GPJosh]

You might not think you have any bugs untill you notice what IE puts under the hood and slows the computer down.