Is This Brought on by Ads or Viruses?

[D'Snowth]

Lately, this really annoying thing has been happening to me - at any random, given moment, when I click on a link, or go to another website from my address toolbar, I'll sudden get this pop up error message saying "Are you sure you want to navigate away from this page?" and such; often times, this happens on deviantART, which always seems to have SOME kinds of issues through-out its site with junk like this, but more recently, it's been happening on other sites as well.

I've been reading around about the problem, and while some are saying that it IS brought on by viruses/infections, most other people say it's actually ads on whatever site you're looking at that are programmed to pop up those error messages whenever you do navigate away from the page.

McAfee is a piece of crap, but it's all I got as far as virus scan is concerned (I know people recommend AVG, but I've had AVG before, and it only did half of what it was supposed to do, and I didn't like it) and it shows nothing, I've downloaded Malwarebytes' Anti-malware scan and it shows nothing, so I'm really beginning to believe that it's ads that are bringing this on; I know that with a lot of pop-up blockers and such, that these ad makers are really stepping it up a notch so that their ads can't be stopped by pop-up blockers (again, deviantART is really bad about these newer ads that automatically expand from their original banner size, even if you don't click on them).

What do you guys think?

 

[frogboy4]

Sounds like Spyware and Adware to me.

Norton is a good system. I was never fond of McAfee. Technically, we're supposed to use a couple different virus systems and run scans every couple of days, but nobody really does that.

Viruses are just going to get more plentiful - even for Mac users and many of them will be caught quite unaware because the platform relies too heavily on the fact that hackers don't care enough to attack Apple's smaller share of the market. That's changing.

You will probably have to run a Spyware removal application. Also - do not download fonts from free sources unless you know the company. That's bitten me before. It's also a leading cause of infection.

 

[D'Snowth]

Also - do not download fonts from free sources unless you know the company. That's bitten me before. It's also a leading cause of infection.

I know what that's like, although I've downloaded fonts before, there were two different sites I've downloaded from - one was site dedicated to improving people's promos and publicity with different fonts (this is where I downloaded the likes of DomCasual, Candice, Carlisle, Grand Stylus, among other fonts), and one font from 1001 Free Fonts (Agent Orange).

Guess which site gave me Malware? Yep, 1001 Free Fonts... and it's supposedly a trusted site.

On the other hand... I honestly don't know anybody who actually likes or recommends Norton anymore, lol.

 

[bazooka_beak]

I personally use Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, it helped me get rid of a pretty nasty virus a few months ago!

 

[D'Snowth]

I like it very well myself; when I fist downloaded it, it detected 88 infections that McAfee never found!

 

[JaniceFerSure]

It sounds like adware to me. I always try to close out pop-ups or misdirective sites as fast as I can. The site Glitter Graphics, which I miss, gave my computer a bad virus(that is contained in Norton).

Make sure your firewall is on & any adware/virus sites you have on your computer are up to date.

P.S.- I like your new avatar Snowthy.

 

[D'Snowth]

It sounds like adware to me. I always try to close out pop-ups or misdirective sites as fast as I can. The site Glitter Graphics, which I miss, gave my computer a bad virus(that is contained in Norton).

Again, deviantART's attempted to give me viruses as well, but McAfee's been able to stop those before. Ironically, another time this happened was on Colin Mochrie's official website.

Make sure your firewall is on & any adware/virus sites you have on your computer are up to date.

Yeah, McAfee's been having problems lately with automatically disabling itself (and they've acknowledge this, and claim to be working on it, as this is happening to everybody using their service), but this has been happening long before that; and again.

P.S.- I like your new avatar Snowthy.

Thanks... long as a play Steve, might as well make him my avatar, lol.

 

[Ilikemuppets]

Ugh! I can't stand Norton.

 

[bazooka_beak]

It might also help if you download the Firefox internet browser. I have it and use Ad-block, and sometimes it'll warn you if a site is notoriously bad.

 

[D'Snowth]

It might also help if you download the Firefox internet browser. I have it and use Ad-block, and sometimes it'll warn you if a site is notoriously bad.

I don't like Firefox.

You know something, now that you all mention it about it being possible Adware? I notice every week when McAfee does its automatic, scheduled virus scan, it ALWAYS detects an Adware infection, but whenever I click remove it, it always comes up with an error message saying "Cannot be fully removed".

Screw McAfee.