Stopping Pop ups

Randy had been researching for his speech for the last two hours. He was trying to find a great opening line. Finally he sees a link to a web page: "Great Opening Lines for Speeches". He clicks on the link, the page blanks out and a popup window asks him "Do you want to Download and Install?" The top line says "Security Warning" and all the rest of it doesn't make a lot of sense. Thinking that he needs this to view the page, he clicks "Yes". Should he have done this?

The answer is: probably not. These boxes are called a "Security Warnings" for a reason and it's becoming all too common these days to go to a website and be presented with one of these little gems. Most new users just click "Yes" to everything not ever worrying if it's safe.

In most cases, you may be doing something you never intended in the first place...downloading spyware. You may have just installed software which will cause popups on your screen or will track what websites you visit on the web. Now you have something installed on your computer that you have no idea what it does. In the latter months of last year I was called to fix several computers which had a product called "Hot Party" installed on them. This software caused the computer to pop up naked people at odd times. If you tried to uninstall it, you ended up uninstalling Hot Party and installing Hot Canada, after that Hot Bikini and so on. It was not easy to remove, and not really the fault of the company since someone clicked "Yes" and agreed to the download.

Last year a New Jersey company was charged with something called "Modem Hijacking". An Edmonton couple, along with 1200 other victims, had a box pop up on their screen that looked a bit like one of the security warning boxes. This fake box was a trap. It didn't matter where you clicked on it, it would take you to a webpage that practically forced you to download their software. The resulting software changed their dial-up modem settings so that their computer was dialing a 1-900 number, instead of their internet service provider. This software was even dialing out when they weren't home. The couple was unaware of this until they received a bill from Telus for over $2400. This is a rare circumstance, and the perpetrators were prosecuted, but I'm of the opinion that if it happens once, it can happen again.

Spyware creators use a lot of these fake warning popups. They will say things like "WARNING! Your IP address is being broadcast" or "Your system is insecure". You can tell that they are fake in a couple of different ways. First, move the mouse over the whole box. You know how the mouse pointer changes when you're going to click on a link? For most of us, the pointer changes to something that looks like a little hand with the index finger pointing straight up. When you move your mouse all over this "warning", does the pointer look like the little hand the whole time? If it does, it's a fake warning. Secondly, look at the box that it came up in. Does it look like a box within a box? It's probably a fake warning box. Close it by clicking on the outermost little X in the upper right-hand corner. Don't click anywhere inside that area as you will probably just go to a page you didn't want to get to.

There have always been safe software downloads, Shockwave Flash, QuickTime, The MSN Chat Control, and Microsoft's WindowsUpdate. These ones have been around for a long time and they very rarely cause any problems. There are a host of others that you should avoid completely: Gator, CommonName Toolbar, BonziBuddy, Hotbar, Download Accelerator, Lop, WurldMedia, etc. This is just a small list of all the really nasty spyware out there. There are hundreds more. The best rule of thumb is, if you don't know what it is - say no. These have been causing problems on computers for the past couple of years. If you were to go through all the "legalese" that you have to "Accept" in order to install these programs, you would find that by installing them, you are giving them permission to collect information from your computer and send it to marketing companies.

The real trick is to take a look at the name of the software they are asking you to download and install. You can open up another browser window (got to the start menu and click on Internet Explorer, you may need to move the "security warning" box out of the way a bit to be able to see underneath) and go to your favorite search engine (mine is Google), type the name in, and see what comes up for articles on that software. Does it mention "Spyware" or anything like that? It's amazing how many of the articles will come up and tell you exactly what the software does, and better yet... is it a nasty thing? A little paranoia never hurts either. If you have to download a piece of software you've never heard of before in order to view a webpage, do you really want to go there? Can you find the information on another site that doesn't require a download? All reputable websites will not require you to download software to view their pages and if they do, will give you clear details about why you need to download that software and what it's for.

In the end, the best way to go is to be better informed about what you are downloading - before you download it. It only takes a minute or two to do the research on any software. If you can't find the info on the net you can always call our techs. They would be more than happy to help you keep your system clean of this nasty software. If you have already said yes to one of these boxes then you may have spyware - now might be a good time to call us and get it cleaned off your system.