• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

Malware/Privacy Intrusion Virus in P.M.'s?!?!

scarnicom

scarnicom

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Perhaps it is only me, but the other night I'm thinnking it was Saturday night, I was checking everything out and received a pm... So I checked it out, and soon after, before I could reply, I started getting this Win 7 Security pop up that I have seen a few times before, on my older laptops, which the virus eventually ruined.

Here is a screen shot of what it looks like
win-7-antispyware-2012.jpg


It has many different looks, but this is the most common look. It is a fake antispyware to get you to buy the program. Trust me I did my research. When infected your computer will not let you go to websites, or almost anything else. But the strange thing is that it comes and goes, It tapered off Early Sunday morning, and I immediatly purchased Malwarebytes, the suggested answer in most forums. Now everytime I go to my P.M.'s there is a pop up of it being blocked. So I'm glad I purchased the program. Just a heads up to anyone else this may be happening to.
 
I got a virus this weekend also while on this site. It actually disabled my anti-virus and anti-malware. It also killed the ability to restore to a date before the virus. I ended up wiping the hard drive and reinstalling the factory disks. It's a rootkit virus, which my computer expert son says is usually attached to ads (not by the advertiser or site). He advises backing up your computer every few days, and not clicking on any newer ads. I'm not talking about classifieds, but banner ads.

Noelle
 
Thanks Noelle, I almost went with Norton, but everyone seems to suggest this Malware Program, and it seems to work quite well.
 
I've heard a couple of people say something along these lines, but no one has pointed out an actual source of the virus. My programmer has checked out the code of the site as well as the server and has not seen any indication of an intrusion by a hacker. I am running both MalWareBytes and Vipre and have not had a single red flag raised by either of those programs. And certainly I am on this site more than most people. The only hit I got at all recently was when some cretin tried to register an infected site onto my FaunaTopSites site, which I terminated.

Now, if someone is injecting infected ads via Google, then that is another story entirely, and certainly nothing I have much control over. If a particular ad is identified as being the culprit, I can block THAT ad. Same goes with my FaunaAds ads that run on the site. I know I don't review all ads that come to this site, and quite likely Google does not neither. Certainly someone could pay to put a malware page link in there, but unless and until someone notifies me of which ad is the culprit, it would be nearly impossible to determine. All someone would have to do is to change their website periodically so that the malware only showed up at random times, and it would be such an intermittent problem that it would be pretty darn difficult to determine. In any case, I don't believe anyone can get infected by a virus with just an ad link showing up on the site. They would have to click the ad in order to go to the site itself for the code to be run to initiate the infection. At least that is my understanding of the method of infection.

So if you click on an ad and get a warning of an attempted virus injection, you need to contact me to let me know which ad it was that you clicked on.
 
The root virus is usually attached to ads because they have more 'open doors' than any other documents. They are not at all the fault of the advertiser. They can attach to a Walmart ad, or whatever. My anti-malware and Avira did not detect it either. But about the 3rd time I ran scans, both programs were disabled.
The higher end antivirus programs that are updated daily learn very quickly and work well. I've put Norton on now, so if I get a warning I'll let you know.

I'm not thinking you can do anything about it. I was just giving a heads up. Obviously, I have no intention of avoiding the site!

Noelle
 
Hi,
I also got this virus when viewing a fauna thread. My hubby fixed it (I'm not sure how) but just wanted everyone to know I was also affected.
Thanks,
Nikki
 
Rich, the thing is I didn't click on any ad what so ever. Just my P.M., and I have gotten it randomly even just when switching over sites from say facebook, to NBA.com. I think it's just the lurking around in the net, it just seems I get it more frequent here lately.
 
I think it is pretty much a given that if you want to cruise the internet, you HAVE to have as much protection as possible from these cretins that create malicious programs and set them loose on other people. I used to think that it was only pretty seriously disturbed people doing this sort of thing for giggles, but now I'm not so sure. Probably more likely it's just another aspect of the cyberwar taking place that we just barely see from the sidelines.
 
Ah! I thought it was just me. I've got Norton's and for about 2 weeks now, if I click to view a thread (and it seems to be random threads), I get a little notice from Norton's. I can pull up the information and it actually gives an IP address and website of where the "attack" is coming from, but I can't figure out how to cut and paste that information here. If someone familiar with Norton can give a dummies version of what to do, I'll be happy to share.
 
I've gotten this once or twice as well (the pop up that says an IP was blocked), I'll screen shot it next time
 
In case anybody wants a completely free and 100% effective way of blocking malicious scripts in websites, you want to download the NoScript add on for Firefox. It takes a while to configure, but by default it blocks ALL scripts. You can permanently enable certain scripts and permanently block others... it's completely at your discretion. I've been using NoScript exclusively for four years on three separate computers and have not been infected with a single virus during that time, and trust me, I do a lot of surfing and have definitely clicked bad things. I stopped using antivirus software when they became ridiculously bloated and expensive. I'd rather use my hardware for gaming than checking constantly for ITDs (internet transmitted diseases).

For example, here's a list of all active scripts on this Fauna thread that NoScript allows me to block or accept:
google-analytics.com (enabled)
faunaads.com (disabled)
sitemeter.com (disabled)
googlesyndication.com (enabled)
doubleclick.net (disabled)
rfihub.net (disabled)
interclick.com (enabled)
faunaclassifieds.com (enabled)

Perhaps the virus is originating from one of these disabled scripts?
 
Here's the one from this morning. Thanks for the screenshot instructions, hubby! I can get the others, too, that are from different IPs and websites, if needed.
 

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Thought it was a coincidence but I got hit last week on here also at work. If it pops up do not x out or close. Restart pc. If it infects use combofix to repair. http://combofix.org/
 
Also it was a winxp machine with explorer8. I have fixed about 8 machines with this fake antivirus and all were either xp or vista and explorer 8
 
I have seen that one before Tere. It just sucks for the unprotected user..."Give us your money or we'll never leave"... in a nutshell.lol
 
On my work pc it came up as XPAntivirus 2012 Again just so people know, Combofix will get rid of it
 
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