Comments on: Blog spam http://blog.garethjmsaunders.co.uk/archives/2004/10/14/blog-spam/ The Revd Gareth J M Saunders' weblog Tue, 6 Jan 2009 00:27:29 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.11 by: Nigel http://blog.garethjmsaunders.co.uk/archives/2004/10/14/blog-spam/#comment-351 Mon, 18 Oct 2004 08:30:20 +0000 http://blog.garethjmsaunders.co.uk/archives/2004/10/14/blog-spam/#comment-351 Yes, Gareth, it's getting daft isn't it? Not quite on topic but... The other day I accidentally miss-typed the main PayPal URL. I missed out the first full-stop after the "www". Surprisingly this connected with a "Casnio" site and brought up a worrying pop-up dialogue. Worrying because similar pop-ups appear when a virus is sneakily downloading in the background. Now I did a full scan afterwards and found no nasties, but it was still a worrying moment (and could be just because I run both a soft and hard firewall). And the point is - why? Being relatively knowledgable about PCs means I can recognise a threat, and the speed of broadband means a virus can download in the blink of an eye. So why should my rediculously small typing error cause such stress and tie up my PC for 45 minutes while it is virus-checked? Why do we allow web-site owners to have this ability to recognise that people occasionally miss-type, and trap them in to viewing some other content? Well because of potential "money" of course... But what an unpleasant habit. I've used a dual boot XP/Linux system before and I'm tempted to switch to Linux for web-browsing... A good move perhaps, but why should I? Phew! A cup of tea is needed now, I think!! Yes, Gareth, it’s getting daft isn’t it? Not quite on topic but… The other day I accidentally miss-typed the main PayPal URL. I missed out the first full-stop after the “www”. Surprisingly this connected with a “Casnio” site and brought up a worrying pop-up dialogue. Worrying because similar pop-ups appear when a virus is sneakily downloading in the background. Now I did a full scan afterwards and found no nasties, but it was still a worrying moment (and could be just because I run both a soft and hard firewall). And the point is - why? Being relatively knowledgable about PCs means I can recognise a threat, and the speed of broadband means a virus can download in the blink of an eye. So why should my rediculously small typing error cause such stress and tie up my PC for 45 minutes while it is virus-checked? Why do we allow web-site owners to have this ability to recognise that people occasionally miss-type, and trap them in to viewing some other content? Well because of potential “money” of course… But what an unpleasant habit.

I’ve used a dual boot XP/Linux system before and I’m tempted to switch to Linux for web-browsing… A good move perhaps, but why should I?

Phew! A cup of tea is needed now, I think!!

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