Gator/Gain

[neil_cardiff]

Ted,

Having been a bit lazy at home recently, I haven't run Ad-aware on my home pc, and have started noticing our favourite thing appearing on the Pistonhead website;

Pop-ups

And noticibly the Gator/Gain variety that pop up and bug you until you kill them.

Is this something that you have implemented?
Or is it my fault (I use ad-aware at work regularly so stuff like Gator dosen't send out packets with all our network info/system set-up/girlfriends bra size's on) and havent had the same thing happen.

Ta!

[jeremyc]

Not from PH I think: I don't get any (and I'm not using any form of filter).

[neil_cardiff]

Gator/Gain is installed generally through some free bit of shareware or something similar - and then any website that uses the gator content/scrpt (or something else technical sounding) will then pop up as a gator application when the user comes across a page with the content.

You would know cos the task bar pops up with a little 'friendly' looking crocodile/aligator (hence the name)

[PetrolTed]

Not something I've implemented. I hate crap like that.

[Neil Menzies]

Gator is parasitic, i.e. it pops up ads over sites which have nothing to do with it. Their 'advertisers' pay for keywords or something, and if you then visit a site with those keywords, up pops an ad.

Its usually installed (very quietly) with shareware games or utilities - things like Kazaa install it for you too.

[neil_cardiff]

I thought as much Ted, knew you would say that somehow - just had to check though.

To all those who don't know - if you want to get rid of shite like gator; search for Ad-aware and install it and run a scan on your hard drive - more than likely something will have found its way in...

[PetrolTed]

Actually it looks like it might be something to do with the webrings at the bottom of the home page. Looks like they'll have to go.

[jeremyc]

quote:Actually it looks like it might be something to do with the webrings at the bottom of the home page. Looks like they'll have to go.

I've noticed that the graphics from the webring boxes frequently fail to load completely for me.

Been meaning to let you know but so far have just ignored it ....

[JonRB]

I've just had this pop up on another site somewhere. Does this mean that I have a trojan on my machine or is it something that sneaks into the website itself (eg. the webring Ted mentioned)?