ff.net is evil!

[yakalskovich]

Just now I tried to access some of the "Maglor in History" stories that rcfinch has listed on her web site.
(Go look at the stories, by the way, they're about my favourite Elf ever...)

Well, that particular story was posted on fanfiction.net. When I arrived there, that site showered me with a plethora of popups, as usual - but this time the popup was an Evil Popup from Hell and actually tried to install an effin' dialer on my computer, and when I refused tried handing me a trojan!

Luckily, Antivir caught them. I have sometimes seen banner or popup advertising trying to distribute some sort of malware, but the persistent nastiness of that thing surpasses everything I have ever seen.

ff.net really needs to watch what advertising they allow. Much of it is perfectly legit (selling magazine subscriptions and some such deathly boring commercial stuff), but dialers and trojans are definitely evil, not to say illegal. And they can't hide behind the fact they offer a 3-day popup suppressant - they should not be giving that sick stuff to anyone, even a casual visitor who wasn't clever enough to turn off all popups beforehand!

I hung around for a bit, searching for an email address I could vent my anger to, but wisely, ff.net studiously avoids telling anyone at any point where they can be reached. I mean, these people sell advertsing to all and sundry (legit), but all and sundry distribute dialers over their popups, refusal not an option (definitely illegal), and these people don't even give you a chance to tell them their site is spawning malware in all directions.

There is an option to "Report possible abuses" at the end of every effin' story posted on ff.net so you can make sure nobody mentions willies or suchlike ("Eeeek! There be kiddies about!"), but no chance to tell them something isn't working technically, or that one of their bleemin' popups is distributing fucking dialers and viruses! Bugger me with a maypole, but do these people ever have their dratted heads screwed on the wrong damned way!!!

Comments

[japanologist.livejournal.com]

He he, I suppose you still swear on your ol' MSIE for surfing the net. Here comes Mr. MS-Alternative: I recently fell totally in love with Mozilla's latest breed: Firebird (version 0.7, stable) aka Firefox (same thing, new name, new version 0.8, beta). I've had Firebird on my Mac for quite a while and loved it, now got the new Firefox which was released today - and truely wouldn't want any other browser again in my live. It exists - like most good Open Source Software - on Mac, Windows and Linux. Go and download it at http://www.mozilla.org (beware, the site's slow today since EVERYONE is downloading the new Firefox)! It has a nice little intelligent pop-up-blocker, too, which can let pop-ups through on a domain name basis, which is very handy! There are some other nice features, too, you definitively gonna like.

And, get rid of Windows. I can highly recommend SuSE Linux 9.0 (Personal as well as Professional). Got it even installed on my not so latest Sony Vaio - which was a Linux nightmare before SuSE 9.0 due to its funky hardware. Since I got Linux on my Laptop: no more serious dialer and virus dramas, and it works totally fine with any ISDN card, modem, DSL, even T-DSL and everything. And if you MUST run some Win-Apps, go get Wine-Rack, too, that is a perfect tool for runny nearly any Windows app on Linux with no hastle. You can get both bundled from Amazon, by the way.

Stay safe, stay out of MS, Stephan.

Re:

[yakalskovich]

The firefox thing I might do; that sounds sensible. But I'm afraid I am not going to have Linux on my little foldup computer; neither WorldsAway nor my old Paradox will run under it, and before I risk putting that throught WINE (which is reported to be iffy and capricious) and losing two of my key applications, I'll stay put with Windows ME.-