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jwoollen

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Unexpected popup "connecting to..." login screens (authentication request) while browsing some sites

Browser: IE 6.0.2800.1106.xpsp2.030422-1633
OS: XP with all SPs, updates and patches
Have run Pest Patrol with current updates
Ditto: Spybot, Ad-Aware...and also have running Norton AV CE with current definitions.


Issue: while browsing commercial sites e.g. cnn.com, i am getting popup dialog boxes that read in the title bar: "connecting to" and the target will be various domain names like "ar.atwola.com"  -- In the body of the box will be an authentication request; blanks for insertion of username and password...much like any other DUN box. (i have broadband access with no dialup.)

Investigation has indicated (though I'm not positive) the action is triggered when the browser reads a line of javascript such as:

<script language="JavaScript1.1" src="http://ar.atwola.com/file/adsWrapper.js"></script>

In the case of the cnn.com page, this line appears three different times with various files after the .../file/ part of the path. ...And I get three different popups, each which have to be closed before I can proceed. Interestingly enough, if I put the host.domain name part in the browser address window (ar.atwola.com w/o the subfolders and files) I get the same login box. If I do this from a different machine on a different network I get the expected 404 error.

Of course different sites refer to different domain names...but the result is the same. HOWEVER, not the example below: these are two consecutive lines from the cnn page: (lines 10 and 11 btw...)

<script language="JavaScript1.2" src="http://i.cnn.net/cnn/.element/ssi/js/1.0/main.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script language="JavaScript1.1" src="http://ar.atwola.com/file/adsWrapper.js"></script>

The first call DOES NOT generate the popups...just the second one. I can't discern the difference between to two except that the first line is probably on the same server and doesn't trigger the logon authentication request.

FYI: On the experts-exchange homepage the reference is to "a.tribalfusion.com" but I can't view the source to look at other possibilities.

The issue may or may not have begun when I installed Panicware Popup Stopper...and I have since uninstalled with no result.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.  Please let me know if you need any further details.
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Avatar of Zvonko
Zvonko
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Oh, one small trick to get ride of that garbige is to add a line in your hosts file.
hosts is located in C:\WINDOWS\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

Add that host like this:

127.0.0.1       ar.atwola.com



That will help :-)

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jaysolomon

No comment has been added lately, so it's time to clean up this TA.
I will leave the following recommendation for this question in the Cleanup topic area:

Accept: Zvonko {http:#9387170}

Please leave any comments here within the next seven days.
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