ebay toolbar - is it becoming crapware ? ...

[Guest RJK]

Has anyone got the "heads-up" on what happens when I click on my ebay

toolbar, to go to the ebay.co.uk,

 

When I clicked on it tonight there seemed to be some attempt to redirect me

to

http://www.rover.ebay.....lotsofgobbledygookhttp://www.ebay.co.uk\Moregobbledygook

..... and I got an IE7 "Page cannot be displayed" ..MVP hosts file :-)

....perhaps ?

 

or, if you like show me ebay "within" another page, sort of thing. I did a

quick Google on it and got the impression that http://www.rover.ebay.co.uk is an

affiliate of ebay.

It seems that one cannot click on the "ebay" in the ebay toolbar to get

straight to ebay any more, i.e. you have to type it in yourself or add it to

Favourites ?

 

(bearing in mind that one is encouraged to install it because of the

"security" benefits i.e. it is supposed to alert you if you are directed to

spoofed ebay web-sites).

 

TIA

 

regards, Richard

[Guest VanguardLH]

Re: ebay toolbar - is it becoming crapware ? ...

 

RJK wrote:

> Has anyone got the "heads-up" on what happens when I click on my ebay

> toolbar, to go to the ebay.co.uk,

>

> When I clicked on it tonight there seemed to be some attempt to redirect me

> to

> http://www.rover.ebay.....lotsofgobbledygookhttp://www.ebay.co.uk\Moregobbledygook

> .... and I got an IE7 "Page cannot be displayed" ..MVP hosts file :-)

> ...perhaps ?

>

> or, if you like show me ebay "within" another page, sort of thing. I did a

> quick Google on it and got the impression that http://www.rover.ebay.co.uk is an

> affiliate of ebay.

> It seems that one cannot click on the "ebay" in the ebay toolbar to get

> straight to ebay any more, i.e. you have to type it in yourself or add it to

> Favourites ?

>

> (bearing in mind that one is encouraged to install it because of the

> "security" benefits i.e. it is supposed to alert you if you are directed to

> spoofed ebay web-sites).

 

NOTE: The following unrelated newsgroup was omitted in my reply:

microsoft.public.security.virus

 

rover is eBay's advertising server host. So check if you have it listed

in your MVP hosts file. I don't use the hosts file to block "bad" sites

because the hostname must be specified, and any site can change the name

of their host or even make it accept any hostname. For DoubleClick

alone, the MVP hosts file have over 50 entries just because there are so

many of them used by DoubleClick, and more are to follow.

 

I didn't see a "[*.]rover.*" entry in the MVPS hosts file that I looked

at. So maybe some other software you have is blocking that host. You

didn't provide the complete URL. It might be that it has some

substring, like /ads/, that gets blocked by an ad-block program or

ad-block feature within a program. IE7Pro, for example amongst MANY,

has a preset list of URL substrings on which to block to get rid of ads.

 

I wouldn't rely on any anti-phish toolbar or filter to accuracy announce

that I visited such a site. Those spoof sites disappear in under 4

hours so the phish lists are always too old. They used to stick around

2 to 4 days but with all the reporting going on that has been severely

reduced. Sounds good that they disappear but the phishers already know

their spoof site is short-lived and already have a pool of others to

utilize. Once they spew their spam, they have just a few hours for it

to survive along with any site referenced within it. For every phish

site that I've ever run across, heard about, or checked in the various

phish lists below, the sites are already dead. Sometimes I've managed

to see a report and visited that site within an hour of that report and

the site is gone (because the report is often not immediate to when the

spam attack started that tried to lure users to their new phish site).

 

http://www.phishtank.com/

http://www.antiphishing.org/

http://www.millersmiles.co.uk/

 

It's a good bet that it is something on your end doing the blocking to

eBay's rover host.

[Guest RJK]

Re: ebay toolbar - is it becoming crapware ? ...

 

"VanguardLH" <V@nguard.LH> wrote in message

news:FaSdnaJKktBmvz_VnZ2dnUVZ_jGdnZ2d@comcast.com...

>

> NOTE: The following unrelated newsgroup was omitted in my reply:

> microsoft.public.security.virus

>

> rover is eBay's advertising server host. So check if you have it listed

> in your MVP hosts file. I don't use the hosts file to block "bad" sites

> because the hostname must be specified, and any site can change the name

> of their host or even make it accept any hostname. For DoubleClick

> alone, the MVP hosts file have over 50 entries just because there are so

> many of them used by DoubleClick, and more are to follow.

>

> I didn't see a "[*.]rover.*" entry in the MVPS hosts file that I looked

> at. So maybe some other software you have is blocking that host. You

> didn't provide the complete URL. It might be that it has some

> substring, like /ads/, that gets blocked by an ad-block program or

> ad-block feature within a program. IE7Pro, for example amongst MANY,

> has a preset list of URL substrings on which to block to get rid of ads.

>

> I wouldn't rely on any anti-phish toolbar or filter to accuracy announce

> that I visited such a site. Those spoof sites disappear in under 4

> hours so the phish lists are always too old. They used to stick around

> 2 to 4 days but with all the reporting going on that has been severely

> reduced. Sounds good that they disappear but the phishers already know

> their spoof site is short-lived and already have a pool of others to

> utilize. Once they spew their spam, they have just a few hours for it

> to survive along with any site referenced within it. For every phish

> site that I've ever run across, heard about, or checked in the various

> phish lists below, the sites are already dead. Sometimes I've managed

> to see a report and visited that site within an hour of that report and

> the site is gone (because the report is often not immediate to when the

> spam attack started that tried to lure users to their new phish site).

>

> http://www.phishtank.com/

> http://www.antiphishing.org/

> http://www.millersmiles.co.uk/

>

> It's a good bet that it is something on your end doing the blocking to

> eBay's rover host.

 

 

Thanks for your response.

 

I don't have any trouble using ebay so long as I type ebay's address

straight into IE7's URL slot. For a long time, because I'm naturally lazy,

I could just click on the ebay icon on the ebay toolbar. Tonight, ...ahem,

....last night, when I did that, IE7's status bar was coughing up a long URL

with http://www.rover.ebay* ...not sure if the www was in there, ...some

script of some sort I think, and further along - http://www.ebay.co.uk. ...can't

ever remember noticing that before now. Am not seeing anything like that

no.

 

anyhooo, I uninstalled ebay Toolbar, ...agreed - false sense of security !

....but every little helps.

 

regards, Richard