• Posted 12/19/2024.
    =====================

    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • 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.

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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