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Old November 23, 2005, 05:36 PM   #1
model 25
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Does this site use spyware?

I noticed that my spyware warning comes on while useing this site, can you tell me why?

25
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Old November 23, 2005, 05:40 PM   #2
Trip20
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Cookies?
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Old November 23, 2005, 05:54 PM   #3
model 25
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No really I loaded a program in that tells me when my putor is being spied on and this site lites up the warning.

The program was a free download so I am not sure it is working right so I am asking about this site and spyware.

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Old November 23, 2005, 06:12 PM   #4
Rebar
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This site, and most boards, will put a "cookie" on your machine, to hold your login information, when you last visited, and which topics have new posts in them.
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Old November 23, 2005, 06:38 PM   #5
tyme
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Quote:
I noticed that my spyware warning comes on while useing this site, can you tell me why?
Yes. Every time you visit TFL, it downloads everything on your computer, empties your bank accounts, sends anonymous emails to the BATFE telling them you're manufacturing machineguns, and sends messages to the FBI relating your recent interest in ammonium nitrate and oil refineries.

I haven't personally checked every line of vbulletin for spyware-type functionality, but TFL does not collect any information beyond what you voluntarily provide during registration and in usercp, and your ip address. Anthing that's properly called "spyware" is a program running on your computer, due to browser or email client bugs, or due to users clicking on and running any program they see a link to. It's unfortunate that various spyware-detection programs call cookies and javascript "spyware", but that's almost certainly what's happening.

Moving to tech support forum...
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Old November 23, 2005, 08:10 PM   #6
stratus
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Join Date: October 5, 2005
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A lot of spyware/internet security programs err on the side of caution when on the lookout for spyware and throw a bunch of warning messages at you. I guarantee you that this site is the least of your problems. The best way to deal with spyware is by having a hardware firewall and running AdAware and Spybot every now and again to remove the inevitable problems. If you ever have problems with something you can't remove, that would require using HijackThis, or manually editing the registry (not advisable unless you're absolutely sure you know what you're doing), things like that. This is all without addressing worms and viruses (spyware is a hell of a lot more common though, as you probably know). If you ever have a lot of spyware problems, you can always PM me if you're not sure how to fix it.
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Old November 24, 2005, 09:04 PM   #7
spacemanspiff
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Quote:
The program was a free download so I am not sure it is working right so I am asking about this site and spyware.
which program? i'm running spybot, adaware, and that microsoft thingy, none of them flag TFL with anything.

the above three programs are probably the best out there that are free anti-spyware. i've seen way too many supposed 'spyware programs' that are actually spyware themselves.

find the program called 'hijackthis', and run it. it will describe what its going to do, and you'll want to save the scan log to a txt file and post its results on the forums at www.securityforums.com, i'm pretty sure thats the correct url.
you'll need to run the scan from a normal login, and from a safe mode login to be sure you are sweeping everything out. the people at the above mentioned forums will help you out with what you can remove. be careful though to follow their directions, removing stuff from the hijackthis program is a lot like removing registrys from regedit, you need to know exactly what you are doing.
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