Scratch cards?

I was wondering the same thing.

Advertising? Check out properties on it if you see it again and look at the source. I don't see that stuff when I'm logged in (and have a popup blocker) but others say there are offsite ads here now.

i get that same pop up. it is annoying. i wish i could stop it. >

Don't Click it! Whatever you do, don't click it. It skrews up your machine. It was loading in the background for me, and when I clicked, it popped up and did something. I didn't think much of it, until I restarted my machine. It pops up some program that asks you to sign up for this scratch card program. It sucks. I've looked in the add/remove programs and even in the registry editor, and it wasn't ther. Don't click it, no matter what. Obey my warnings or you shall be forever punished (or at least it'll annoy you every time you start up your computer).

I'm not saying this thing is one since I haven't seen it, but I know that there are some companies with banner ads and popups that if clicked on or even if you just try to close them using the close button, download a program to your PC if your browser settings aren't strict enough (always allowing ActiveX for example in IE). I really hope that sort of thing is not being displayed on this site.

Try SpyBot Search and Destroy (a free app like Adaware which is another freeware to try) to see if there's any identifiable crud on your pc that it can remove. I don't have links at the moment but googling will get you to the developers' sites.

Here is AdAware link http://www.lavasoftusa.com

"#2 by Lady KarmaGirl - 4/27/2003 7:32:46 AM
Nope. Not from here.

I assume that you were to previous sites before this one. Remember that a lot of them use delayed pop-ups that will show up even after you leave the site.

Stardock is completely against pop-ups (we hate them too) and you will never see us prompting to install something like that. "

straight from another thread, and I'm sure that is a truthful response, unfortunately I've gotten those derned things too popping up all over the place. I've only just begun an adawar scan and already it's found 68 infected objects! *gasp*

no pop up here... tried to emulate your situation... and I got nothing... hmmm... is it only on wincustomize, or other stardock sites you see this on??? but frogboy and karmagirl both know nothing about the pop ups... which means stardock has nothing to do with it... hmmm... but also several memebers seem to have the same adware popup... hmmm... quite odd...

maybe some investigating should be done....

I think the culprit is 'hitbox.com'...it loads a cookie as soon as you open IE and if privacy settings aren't set right, will give you a pop-ad from one of it's clients as you cruise IE. Nice, heh

I should have made clear that Stardock has nothing to do with these cookie(s). It loads no matter what site you bring up on IE..and it's not 1 cookie..it's 28 of them!!! >

I thought WC uses hitbox for user tracking purposes here? I block lots of stuff with Proxomitron but I'm fairly sure that a hitbox cookie is related to this site. Unless someone in the know says otherwise, that is.

But mooshoo is right that you can pick up stuff on one site that winds up displaying ads on another so it can be confusing as to the actual source.

sig101- I stand corrected, you are right. When I loaded WCBrowser it put the cookies in the cookie jar. When I then opened IE it appeared that IE was loading it. Not so...when I cleaned the jar out and loaded IE nothing came up until I accessed WinCustomize site. It is nothing more then a tracking tool and I certainly have no problem with that. Next time I'll do my homework before I open my big finger. Thanks for correcting me

Heh, thanks for confirming, yrag. I hadn't looked at it in some time. And since I don't see 3rd party ads here I don't know what else might be going on or where they might originate.

I've never seen one either...knock on wood. I don't think I'll go look for one either...might find one

Ran Adaware followed by an updated version of Spybot and wouldn't ya know, a total of 68 items between the two of them. But, I cleaned my other machine out and came here (not logged in) and got the same pop-up for scratch cards. But no more on this machine since I logged in here and cleaned up my machine. I'm not sure which it was, the not logged in thing or the spyware thing yet. I'll try coming here on my laptop later without logging in and see if I get it or not.

When you're not logged in, there are banner ads that show. However, the contract that we have with the ad company strictly prohibits them from serving pop-ups (because Stardock hates pop-ups!) The only ads that you will see that look like popups are for our other software (they aren't served from a 3rd party).

However, after looking into it, it appears that the banner ad server could have possibly server that ad even though we are strictly against it. Since there is nothing that we can do over the weekend, we will be looking into it on Monday.

We *really* apologize if it is coming from this site, and it will be stopped if it is.

KG: Thanks for looking into it.

Really nice of you to investigate this, thank's for the time. I did try a third machine after running spybot on it and deleting temp files and again, I got the installer pop-up. Doesn't happen after logging in though. Sorry, but it's three for three on this site. Thank's again KarmaGirl for looking into it. I hope they fix it.

thanks karma. Although the "free scratch cards" pop up is annoying, I just ignore it. This is the only site it comes from but hopefully after monday it will stop. BTW I still have banners after i log in.

I have tracked it down. Unfortunately, it is generated from one of the ads in rotation. It's an ad for a site called www.huntfly.com If you go to the Huntfly site, you will be served by the same ad. The sneaky little bugger waits until you refresh the banner before it pops up, so it looks like it is being served by several different sources.

Anyway, I have already put in a call to get it removed. (But, of course, it will be awhile before they actually *do* anything about it). I will keep after them until it is gone.

Again, I *truly* apologize for this! It was *never* out intention to have that on here.

In the mean time, feel free to contact the huntfly people concerning their business practices

Good of you to take care of it and. . no need to apologize either. It's not your fault that people do annoying things right? Thank's again.

A responsive staff.

I have been notified by our ad provider that they have been removed from rotation. Please let me know if you see anything like this again.

Hey Karmagirl the popups HAVE NOT stopped. I just got the usual free scratch cards pop up about 2 minutes ago and it's been going on all day for me.