Caution - Careful about what you download

OK, I know I'm probably gonna get bashed on this posting, but.....

Is there anyway to secure this site more? I think this site is great, but the spybots have found you. I cleaned my computer out last night on spybots, and tonight logon to make a new post and picked up 31 new spybots. I swear this is the only site I logged on to, and instantly picked up all this stuff. I know the site is free, and some of this junk helps pay to keep the site up....but is there any way to block some of this useless and in some cases unsafe stuff? In my case, 26 were 'critical' spys and 5 'negligible'.

Yes, I have firewalls up, spy blocking software, and so on...but somehow the spybots on this site make it through all my protections. If there isn't a way for the admins to block this stuff then I offer a suggestion to the users....

Follow this link http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Personal-Edition/3000-8022_4-10045910.html?part=dl-ad-aware&subj=dl&tag=top5 and download AdAware - the free version....

....and http://www.safer-networking.org/ (also free) to scrub your computers of this spybot software.

If you do, you will see your system performance improve and have a safer internet experience.

Now I'm off to re-scrub my system :shrug:

We have no spybots on our site .

If you are concerned about the 1 or 2 popups that get shown per day - simply DO NOT DOWNLOAD anything. Just close the window. That's what I do, that's what the majority of members do. Nobody ever has any problems.

There is no way I can 'know' what every ad does - but the company that serves our pop up ads is reputable and has no financial interest in harming Internet users. What I do know is that closing the window of any pop up ad is a 100% safe practise and no harm will come your way.

Your spybots (which are on your computer because you actively downloaded something or ran some program or email attachment) could have come from any site or email spam at anytime - even if you are just noticing them now.

The rule of thumb for these things is don't download anything from ANY site and don't open up ANY email attachments that you are not sure of.

Thanks

Marko

I have adaware and a number of spybot detectors (yes, I'm paranoid...I have about 5 security programs I use) and run checks every night after signing off. I haven't found anything except one key-stroke logger that I know came from another site. :shrug: So in my experience, pets.ca is a very safe site.

Course, I'm on slow dial-up. The best protection in the world :laughing:

I haven't had any problems with this site either. I have one pop-up that happens as soon as I log in, but that is it.
In my opinion, it is one of the better ones :)

I've never had a problem either - I run my spyware every day and I'm on here every day - no spyware from this site - ever! Thanks for keeping this site so clean!

I've never had any problems with this site either. I have Ad Aware as well that I run and it's never found anything from this site.

I haven't had anything either... My boyfriend sent me an email without any apparent attachments once and it gave me 186 trojan horses though... :evil:

I have never had any problems with spy stuff loading from this site. I am here at least once daily.

Keep up the good work admins.

Diane

OK, I'm crazy and I'm the only one that is getting hit by spybots everytime that I logon to this site, and have to scrub my system. I'll take the 'hits' for not having all the protections up on my system, but I suggest you check out the general discussion section of this site and take a look at the number of folks that are getting hit with spam.

All I'm saying is be aware, logging on to this site opens your systems up to spybots and implement the proper precautions to protect yourselves. I have a firewall up and a multi-level blockers active at all times, and still scrub after linking to this site. With all the precautions I have active I still scrub after logging on to this site and eliminate 14-27 'infections' loaded in my RAM or hard drive after each connection to this site. The links I provided previously are 'free' scrubbers you can download - but do what you wish. As the ol' saying goes...you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

....and gee why did the Admins recently find the need to post a 'Reporting Spammers' msg 5/8/07 if this site was so safe/clean.....and have you recently checked out the General Discussion Forum concerning email spammers?

'nuf said.....

Ginnys you do realize a lot of times the free downloads aren't necessarily up to date right? Because the people who create the spyware software are usually one step ahead of the game. If you are the ONLY person who is having a problem with this, I suggest you take a closer look at YOUR hard drive. Some of the spyware software takes a lot more than a free download to get rid of.

If you say this is the only website you visit, you do realize it doesn't just get loaded on you computer by using the web right? You do know it can come through email as well? You also know that depending on the firewall you have up, it can be easily broken through and someone can actually log on to your computer and install it right? Most of the firewalls provided by the company you bought your computer from are crap. What you need to do is install a separate firewall and get a router to hide your actualy IP address.

Oh and by the way, my fiance is an IT securities guy for the government, so yes, I have an idea what I'm talking about here considering the steps he had to take to fix my bosses computer a couple of weeks ago. He had so much stuff on his hard drive that it actually took two straight days of running different programs to fix it. I highly suggest you take a look at your computer before you bash this site.

The Reporting Spammers memo was about people who post advertising or links to porn or other garbage on the board itself. When alerted by members, they remove the post and, presumably, add the domain to their 'blocked' list.
I am amazed that you have so many problems. I run virus software every day and it never finds anything. But I rarely click on links, most of them don't interest me, maybe you clicked on a bad one which has left you exposed. There is one recurring pop-up that sneaks past the Google blocker but I'm used to it by now.

....and gee why did the Admins recently find the need to post a 'Reporting Spammers' msg 5/8/07 if this site was so safe/clean.....and have you recently checked out the General Discussion Forum concerning email spammers?

'nuf said.....


I don't think the 'Reporting Spammers' msg has anything to do with what you are discussing. Instead I suspect that it has more to do with providing general information on how to report when a spammer is found. I was on this site for over a year before I found out what the little yield sign at the top of a post was for.

If you haven't noticed the spam posts that show on daily (why someone would take the time to register only to sneak one spam post in is beyond me ... there are plently of 'no registration required' forums out there) then the Mods and Admin are doing well to delete the post quickly. In the past I've reported many of the spam postings and usually within 5 to 10 mins the post is deleted.

That said, just because someone posts a spam link doesn't mean you can pick up a spybot from it .... unless you click on it. On both my old computer (which was full of spybot garbage) and my new one I haven't picked up any spyware from using this forum.

You should also know that some free programs including anti-spy spoftware ACTUALLY HAS spyware/malware in it. The main players (Norton, Mcaffee, Ad-aware) are all safe.

So again be careful what you download.If you don't fully trust the source do not download files - do not open email attachments.

Given that you (and not the thousands of others that visit this site each day) are the only one with this issue, it stands to reason that this is a problem on your computer which has to do with the way you (or someone using your computer) use the internet....and not our site.

The report a spam post that you talked about, was correctly explained by some of the members (Thanks members!)

This thread will now be closed.