Downloads gone wild?

Three times I have been told by popup menus on this site that I am downloading something called the "weather bug."

Popups I can handle. Automatic downloads are a big fat no-no. I'll write back with more information if it happens again, so you can kick whoever is doing this off of your list of advertisers.

You should download it. It puts the current temperature in your start bar. It's cool.

------------------
A day is a drop of water in the ocean of eternity. A week is seven drops.

I always click 'yes' for automatic downloads. You should see the cool stuff I have on my computer now.

Unless you clicked on an ad, it didn't come from this site. I found one campaign running that could lead to said download, but only if you clicked on it.

------------------
Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"Pray that your country undergoes recovery!" - KMFDM

Weather Bug contains spyware, as far as I know. It's not something you want on your PC.

...as a rule, *anything* that covertly installs itself onto your PC through websites or downloads is *not* something you want around.

..just FYI for the folks who take things at face value ;)

------------------
--Maddie--

This topic is closed. You may not reply.
This topic was closed before you could reply.
Foiled again.
*** This post was edited by Chernabog 5/28/2003 4:40:27 PM ***

That's right, chernabog, and all those little things are making your computer run slower and stealing your bandwidth which slows down your internet speed.
*** This post was edited by rolacostaking 5/28/2003 4:45:29 PM ***

Not to mention crashing your computer :p I'm a pc tech, and most of the system instability I see is due to Weatherbug, Webshots, Bonzi Buddy, etc. They're getting better, but they still aren't worth the hassle.

I had Weatherbug on the machine at the office for a time, but got rid of it when (a) it refused to allow me to upgrade using either Opera, Netscape, or Mozilla, and (b) when it kept taking longer and longer and longer and longer for that particular program to start when I rebooted the machine. Since the machine stays on all the time, it only gets rebooted when it misbehaves, and usually when that happens I can't afford to have it sit banging away at the hard drive for ten minutes. I have work to do!

Now I don't have it at work...and at home, well, it isn't even available for OS-X, and I have a dial-up connection anyway...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Thanks guys. I think this thing might be an AOL "feature" rather than a CoasterBuzz advertiser. Sorry about the rant earlier. I get it almost everytime I open a window. There is no accompanying ad. The download window reads, "US at sa.payment.aol.com" It's the word "payment" that creeps me out more than anything.

www.lavasoft.de

Best spyware killer around. Might be able to root it out.

I prefer Spybot Search and Destroy

Just do a search at download.com

------------------
God bless Intamin, Company that I love. Stand beside her, and ride her, from the opening to the closing of the day.

Search & Destroy is much better than AdAware. The two used together will catch everything.

Just my two cents :)

------------------
www.coasterimage.com
Dorney Park Visits in 2003: 4

Always remember to stay away from purple monkeys, they are so bad.

------------------
Purple cows eat silver moon pies, among fiesty, glowing fireflies.

I had weatherbug on my system, but if you do want the weather in your area or the park that you are going to, I know that some of the sites for the parks have the up to date weather and they get it from The Weather Channel web site.

Also as for spybot, I used it on three different systems, both manufactured and scratch built, and on all three, it took out my sound drivers and made it unbearable to reinstall then until I removed spybot. I'm not saying its a bad program, but just be careful with what it removes from your system. I do prefer Ad-aware better, but both are very good programs...

That's really weird, Wild Willy.

Even still, you choose what Search & Destroy removes. (the checkboxes after it's scanned your system) Just watch what you let it get rid of and you should have no problem.

------------------
www.coasterimage.com
Dorney Park Visits in 2003: 4

My favorite weather site is the weather undergournd (www.wunderground.com). Originally a U-M product, it lets you generate a "favorites" list of all your common park destinations on a customized home page. You can eliminate ads for $5/year.

The one thing it doesn't do, that weather.com does, is give you an hour-by-hour forecast. A good way to figure out whether to go early or late on a day with iffy rain.

------------------
http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~bnoble/

It wouldn't let you put a Netscape based browser on your computer Dave?! That's just dispicable. *Hugs Mozilla*.

Spybot Search and Destroy is a great program to get rid of nasty spyware. I had one problem with it though, it stopped responding when scanning for a certain type of spyware every single time I used it. Took care of that problem though.

If your computer automaticly downloads stuff off of website, you should reconcider your security options. ActiveX...it can be good, or it can be very bad.

------------------
AkA somewhatchewy
-Random Little Preppy Girl "OH MY GOD! I love your hair...it's fun!"
-Me "Umm....Thanks...."
-Ben "LMAO! YOUR HAIR IS FUN!"
-Me "Shut Up."

No, Weatherbug's web-based installer didn't work right. When you download the update, you have to fill out a form to select your upgrade sponsor ("Of these ten advertisers who all promote products you have no interest in or need for, pick one as your download sponsor. You may not proceed until you have made a selection.") before it will start the download. Trouble is, the form doesn't work if you're using Opera or Mozilla. Which I was. It also doesn't work with IE-4, which is the latest version of IE I had installed on that machine...I wasn't going to go download a browser that I didn't want to use just to download some dumb little TSR.

I don't understand why any Web designer would use ActiveX, when it is only supported by ONE web browser, and even at that, is only supported on ONE platform. Java, on the other hand, is supported on...ummm...I can think of at least five platforms off the top of my head (Win32, UNIX, MacOS, EPOCH, PalmOS...) and is browser-independent...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I don't understand how some people code, it almost seems like they work for Microsoft or something. Oh how I can't wait to finish my new computer...mmm... Linux goodness.

Most of those weather bugs don't work well as it is. I downloaded the one off of www.weather.com and it was one of the buggiest (kind of ironic) peices of software I've ever used.

------------------
AkA somewhatchewy
-Random Little Preppy Girl "OH MY GOD! I love your hair...it's fun!"
-Me "Umm....Thanks...."
-Ben "LMAO! YOUR HAIR IS FUN!"
-Me "Shut Up."

funny because I just got it as well. and I'm on a wan. I've gotten it a few times
------------------
..."so many coasters,so little sick time"....