[Quincy Lehr]

I'm getting all sorts of pop-up ads when I go on the Sphere at work. Every other site is fine. Just reporting.

[Roger Slater]

Must be a malware cookie or plug-in on your work computer. I have had malware that gave me ads on Eratosphere as well, though fortunately it proved relatively easy to remove. First check your browser plug-ins to see if there are any that look suspicious, and delete the ones you don't recognize or need.

[Quincy Lehr]

Yeah, came to the same conclusion.

[Michael Juster]

Or the other possibility is cyber-gremlins. If Roger's approach doesn't work and you need incantations, just let me know.

[W.F. Lantry]

You've got yourself a web bug. I'm really surprised your I.T. folks let such a thing exist. If you can catch that, you can catch other things which can seriously compromise their network.

On the other hand, if they're letting you run that bug, they'll likely let you run adblock. You should. And while you're at it, load malwarebytes and spybot. I've also recently found this cool thing called ghostery. https://www.ghostery.com/en/ It'll tell you who's running tracking cookies on your machine. Load it, and prepare to be shocked!

[Roger Slater]

Thanks for the ghostery tip, Bill. I installed it and it seems great so far.

[W.F. Lantry]

Yes, it's pretty cool. And the results? Well, shocking is an understatement. It turns out some sites I visit (just normal sites, the kind we all go to) were putting over a dozen tracking cookies on my machine, and then tracking everywhere else that I went.

Then, they store and share this data. And they sell it. So then, every time you go to a new site, there's this furious mini-auction that goes on behind the scene, and the highest bidder gets to display the ads they want. And then that data gets stored and shared. People engage in mystical worrying about google, and they shouldn't. It's this stuff they need to be worrying about. Think of the profiles they can, and do, build on us. And then they turn around and sell *that* data.

The good news? Ghostery lets you turn all those things off. Thereby foiling all their fiendish plans!

[Martin Rocek]

Bill,
thanks as well. BTW, what is the Mac alternative to malwarebytes?

Martin

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Martin Rocek

BTW, what is the Mac alternative to malwarebytes?

Martin,

Just did a quick search. It would seem the advertised alternatives for mac are themselves malware. Pretty diabolical, if you ask me...

Here's an example: http://www.antimalwaremac.com/

The ratings? Fake. The recommendations? Also fake. There are very, very bad people out there!

I'll keep looking...

Best,

Bill

[Andrew Frisardi]

That Ghostery program is great, thanks for mentioning it. One thing, though: are there any tracking cookies you wouldn't want to block? I've just been blocking all of them, and my computer's running much faster.