It’s odd that it takes a person with an immeasurable visual acuity to notice that the favicon on Microsoft’s “Internet Explorer 8 – Browser for the Better” web page uses the IE6 logo.

They either don’t give a damn, or are completely clueless. Perhaps they don’t give a damn about being clueless?

It’s just stupidity. They really should close up their browser shop. Especially the marketing department for it.

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Comments turned off to conserve energy.

Is it because fewer and fewer Internet users are using IE to surf the Internet that Microsoft had to come up with a new way to deliver dangerous content to them? Could it be that Microsoft is even more cunning and evil than we all suspected? How about a conspiracy (type) theory?
Perhaps Microsoft isn’t just relying on sponsored ads on Bing for revenue as we’d all think. Perhaps it goes deeper and they count on the fact that after channeling data destroying content, naive and inexperienced computer users will just go out and buy a new PC that (of course) contains a Microsoft operating system and trial MS software to get people to buy more MS software and use more MS services.
Ok, I know that’s not all true but you’d have to agree that it would make a good movie.

My first and last search on Bing.
Search query: firefox
Results (first seen):
“Sponsored sites”
firefox – www.GetFirefox.com
Download Firefox 3 for free! Your favorite browser, better.

Firefox Free Download- Firefox.2009-Version.info
Fast, More Secure & Customizable Browser. Latest Version Download Now!

When I clicked on that second prominently displayed sponsored ad for Firefox my antivirus software (Avast) blocked access to the site. That has only occurred maybe 3 times in the (nearly) 4 years that I’ve been using it and of course I’m very glad that it did. Imagine other Internet users without proper security precautions in place? I don’t care to bother with seeing what IE does with that link and with my network shield turned off. I’m more concerned about Firefox user’s safety so my best advice? Use Google!

Update: (and a serious one) Um, duh, it’s an ad for Firefox so of course I care about what IE users see (Ken = dumb ass).
Same search query for Firefox on Bing via IE8, the only sponsored ad and the very first result seen is for “Firefox Free Download- Firefox.2009-Version.info”. Yep! The site that is reported to be a malicious one. And for the heck of it, Same search query yet again for Firefox on Bing via Fx 3.0.10, the only sponsored ad and the very first result seen is for “Firefox Free Download- Firefox.2009-Version.info”. Mozilla should be very concerned. This could give Firefox a very bad reputation amongst average IE users looking to try out Firefox.

I’d also like to note that the WOT Firefox add-on warned me about the site (even though Avast blocked it) and chances are would have blocked access to it if Avast hadn’t.

Avast “Last Attacks” Log:
01.06.2009 19:20:58 Network Shield: blocked access to malicious site www.2009-version.info/firefox3-0-8-promo/index.php?source=CCN-CD277-MSN5426US1-firefoxpromo&msnId=ANGUS [ C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe ( 2220 ) ]

Bing – Search for firefox using IE8

Avast “Last Attacks” Log:
01.06.2009 19:30:36 Network Shield: blocked access to malicious site www.2009-version.info/firefox3-0-8-promo/index.php?source=CCN-CD277-MSN5426US2-firefoxpromo&msnId=ANGUS [ C:\Program Files\Shiretoko\firefox.exe ( 1080 ) ]

Bing – Search for firefox using Firefox 3.5pre

Highly Recommended:


Avast
Avast has saved me many, many times from losing everything (I’m sure). I’ve tried AVG and was seriously unimpressed. Where AVG would report on something dangerous as being a potential problem through a manual scan, Avast would report the same as a dangerous infection and then block it and give me the option of what to do with the threat in real time (On-Access Protection). So get it. Free program (pro available), free software updates, free and real time virus definitions database updates.
Avast Home Edition (free)
Avast download.com page (5 star editor rating)
Avast Awards
Ya, ya, you probably only need it if your running Windows but it is cross platform.

WOT (Web of Trust) Firefox Add-on.
WOT Home Page

Thanks for reading.
Ken

We’re Green!
Comments are turned off to save energy (and because I’m too lazy to moderate them).

I was about to take a quiz on Facebook last night ( ARE YOU DUMB ?! – http://xrl.in/1vyw ) and before doing so I looked over the page and I noticed the following at the bottom.

Now I was certain that Rhian had not had anything to do with it, and I very rarely click on random ads, but this appeared to be Facebook related and I was curious about the IQ quiz so I clicked on continue, the site quizyou.net loaded, I clicked on next and fortunately I got the following warning from WOT (Web Of Trust Firefox add-on). WARNING! This site has a poor reputation. Trustworthiness > Poor, Vendor reliability > Poor, Privacy > Poor, Child safety > Very poor.

I decided to investigate a little further (as I always do to decide for myself) so I viewed WOT’s Security Scorecard for quizyou.net and saw this, “Warning! This site is rated as dangerous”.
46 people marked quizyou.net as “Fraud, scam, phishing”, and 8 for browser exploit.
I was convinced that the site was dangerous but I wanted to get a second opinion from another reputable security agency for argument sake and so I ran quizyou.net through McAfee’s SiteAdviser service and they reported the following. “We tested this site and didn’t find any significant problems.” However, in the comments below that in the User Review Summary for quizyou.net you’ll see that 5 reviewers marked quizyou.net as Phishing or other scams, and one as Browser exploit (out of 8 reviewers, one was missing, the other didn’t matter).
As you can imagine, McAfee’s SiteAdviser service has lost all credibility with me as did their other security products years ago.

Refreshing the page that the ARE YOU DUMB quiz is on doesn’t load a new ad, it loads a slight variation of the same ad every time that is displayed at both the top and bottom of the page.

While I entrust my life to Firefox due to its unsurpassed security features, I still try and take extra precautions and obviously in this case, it was a good thing that I did. No matter how secure you think that you are and how secure your browser is, it can take one click to ruin it all for you.
At last that I knew, there were more than 64 million web sites online and so I can’t imagine any single precaution, software, or service that can protect you on every site and from people insistent upon stealing, destroying, and exploiting your personal information and data. It takes a combination of things to stay safe.

If you ever come across such sites, you can help us all to be safe by using Firefox’s Report Web Forgery tool. While on the site in question go to, Help > Report Web Forgery… It takes just seconds to do.

So now you know. Be careful but more than anything, be prepared.
I can’t imagine how and/or why Facebook isn’t aware of this site that Facebook is generating revenue from. My social life and interests are spread across several communities and because of that, my friends are spread out so please pass this along to your friends and hopefully along the way it will grab Facebook’s attention and they’ll address this particular issue and prevent it from happening again.

Thanks so much for your time.
Ken

WOT (Web Of Trust) is a free Internet security addon for your browser. It will keep you safe from online scams, identity theft, spyware, spam, viruses and unreliable shopping sites. WOT warns you before you interact with a risky website.

http://www.mywot.com

WOT

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3456

Furthermore, protect yourself from visiting the same dangerous site again.
Create a blacklist, simple to use, access settings via Tools > FoxFilter Preferences
FoxFilter 6.0

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4351

FoxFilter 7.0 (Latest)

http://inspiredeffect.com/FoxFilter/

Related Pics
WOT-Warning for QuizYou.net

http://www.accessfirefox.org/KS_Cell/Facebook/WOT-Warning.png

QuizYou.net Home Page

http://www.accessfirefox.org/KS_Cell/Facebook/QuizYou-net-Home-Page.png

QuizYou.net Ad, top and bottom of page

http://www.accessfirefox.org/KS_Cell/Facebook/QuizYou.net-Ad-Full-Page.png

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We’re Green!
Comments are turned off to conserve energy however,
Trackbacks and Pingbacks are environmentally friendly.

After nearly 4 years of being with Yahoo web hosting, MouseRunner.com has moved to DreamHost. I will give Yahoo credit for keeping Mouse Runner online with no interruptions at all since February 15, 2005. That’s pretty amazing, but that’s all that I’ll give them credit for.

Without any experience at all, I decided to create a web site mostly as a hobby to help to lessen the affects of winter boredom. After checking out many services, I went with Yahoo GeoCities. It was all point and click setup and extremely easy to use. After time I wanted more features and control and I didn’t want ads on my web site that someone had chosen so that began my search for a web hosting company.
I must have checked out 60+ companies before deciding to go with Yahoo. I was a huge fan of all things Yahoo and I had already tried out their point and click and drag and drop site building software which was very appealing compared to the HTML that I was trying to learn which was completely foreign to me and the cost of their hosting plans seemed reasonable so Yahoo became my choice.

After spending hundreds upon hundreds of hours of creating MouseRunner.com (and 2 other sites at the time), I was becoming more knowledgeable about web standards mostly due to the fact that I was a very strong Firefox advocate. I was curious as to how well the sites that I had created with Yahoo’s Site Builder followed these web standards so I began checking them out and to my surprise and utter disgust, MouseRunner.com’s home page had(has) more than 230 errors in its coding preventing it from validating thus making it inaccessible to many Internet users.

To make a long story short, I’ve had to start from scratch and learn HTML and CSS in a hurry. I’m very far from having mastered either but I’m on my way with it.
Yahoo has told me that it would be too expensive to re-write their site building software. What this means is that they are fully aware that their software (which they actively promote) produces web sites that will not validate thus preventing Internet users with disabilities from fully accessing those sites and its content.
If it weren’t for the fact that I still have a site with hundreds of errors itself due to Yahoo’s software then I’d start a class action law suit. Instead of that (for now) I’m focused on completely re-writing MouseRunner.com by hand line by line and page by page. Keep in mind that I’m far from a coding guru. It’s only for the fact that I have some amazing friends that are helping me out that there has been any progress at all.

Michael Buckley has established all of the primary coding and pages that makes up my 4 web sites. He is a highly skilled and brilliant coder/developer who has made it very easy for me to build off of what he has created by using what he has written as templates to create new pages and features. Now 3 of my sites are compliant to the W3C’s web standards unfortunately, MouseRunner.com isn’t yet one of them.
Re-writting MouseRunner.com has turned out to be a much tougher process than I had imagined but there is great progress which can be seen on www.MouseRunner.net, the building grounds for the new MouseRunner.com.

So here we are finally off of Yahoo’s servers and onto DreamHost’s.
Full credit for that goes to my other great friend Otto de Voogd of 7is7.com. It was on Otto’s suggestion that I moved to DreamHost for its features and costs, and it is Otto who has successfully setup and migrated my 4 web sites to DreamHost. He’s also setup the MySQL databases that are used by all sites, he installed WordPress onto two of them, and installed and setup StatEye (free and open source) which provides me with traffic (and other) stats from the sites.

Certainly not to be left out from being mentioned is Jamey Boje (a.k.a GraphicsGuru). Jamey’s been a strong and consistent supporter of AccessFirefox.org and he’s made significant graphics contributions over the years to MouseRunner.com including Mouse Runner’s games logo, site promotional graphics (current ones and ones for the new Mouse Runner), and he’s also donated Mouse Runner’s new logo (as seen on MouseRunner.net).

In closing, I owe a lot of gratitude to Mozilla for attracting such kind and talented people as the 3 that I have mentioned who I all met through Mozilla projects. We’re all good and long time friends.

Thanks for reading.
Ken

P.S. Use Google!!

If you’re in need of a web host or a better one, I highly recommend that you check out DreamHost. Otto has DreamHost coupons available that will get you a great deal.
Contact Michael for web design and development and other coding needs and check out some of the awesome software that he’s created including many popular Firefox Add-ons.
Jamey is also available for web design projects plus any other graphics needs that you may have including logos and promotional materials.