New ActiveX Plugin at Experts Exchange
It seems that sometime in the past 48 hours or so, Experts Exchange has added some content to their website that is causing a monumental annoyance. I think it may have something to do with DoubleClick (a bad company to do business with…sigh). Just what I wanted, a reputable website like this tracking my moves by some nefarious company like DoubleClick. Nonetheless, now every time I go to the Experts Zone, and a few other places on the site, I get this annoying warning from Internet Explorer. First a yellow ribbon warning at the top that says “To help protect your security, Internet Explorer stopped this site from installing and ActiveX control on your computer. Click here for options.” Well once again, I had considered this site to be reputable and I want to trust it, so I placed it site in my Trusted Zone in IE. I also made sure all the settings for my Trusted Zone were set to allow ActiveX controls, however the popup persists. Then if I tell it to go ahead and install the plugin (against my better judgment), I get the a dialog box in Windows 7 that says “Do you want to allow the following program from and unknown publisher to make changes to this computer?”, and sure enough, the program name is “unknown program”, and the publisher is “unknown”. I actually approved it the first time, but I still go through this sequence every time, and now I’m wish I hadn’t let it do it at all.
Is anyone else experiencing this? It's happening with IE8, but not in Firefox.
Is anyone else experiencing this? It's happening with IE8, but not in Firefox.
Dave Baldwin
While do get the ad in Firefox, apparently I have it blocked in IE8 so I don't even see it. Spybot and Spywareblaster at work again.
ASKER
Well now I'm guessing that it's an ad or something that is tracking me, because now I have a supposedly ad free, premium account, and I still get the warning from IE. I don't understand why I can't get rid of it. I've allowed all ActiveX controls to prompt me, and if I say to go ahead and install it, it make it worse, because instead of getting the yellow ribbon at the top, I get a dialog box every time, even if I say to install.
The only place I see an ad is at the initial logon screen.
I, too, have been having problems lately with EE Sites. They load slowly. It seemed to start 2-3 days ago which would be about the time I installed the latest version of Adobe Flash.
The browser may be trying to load another, probably advertisement, page and failing. This is consistent with my using a HOSTS file.
The browser may be trying to load another, probably advertisement, page and failing. This is consistent with my using a HOSTS file.
ASKER
Like I said, I don't know that it's an ad that's doing it at this point. I think it's a new ActiveX control that the web developers loaded, and I suspect if they saw this thread they'd know exactly what it is.
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No, I never loaded Java
darrylka--The chances are good that using a HOSTS file will stop the DoubleClick ads.
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
DaveBaldwin:--I also saw the Java icon in the Notification Area starting 2-3 days ago when things slowed down. I now have uninstalled Java JRE and reinstalled it. (same most recent version--version 6, update21)
But I also did one more thing. I set the Java 2 PlugIn SSV Helper add-on to Disable. There are references that IE8 acts strangely with that add-on That seems to have taken care of the slow down and the Java icon. I do not see the icon any more. (I always had the Notification Area set to "Only show notifications" for Java.)
Since I did not mess with Java settings until today, I think darrylka may be right that EE has made a change. I heard that Oracle made some changes to Java JRE when they took over Sun. So the latest download could be different from the old.
But I also did one more thing. I set the Java 2 PlugIn SSV Helper add-on to Disable. There are references that IE8 acts strangely with that add-on That seems to have taken care of the slow down and the Java icon. I do not see the icon any more. (I always had the Notification Area set to "Only show notifications" for Java.)
Since I did not mess with Java settings until today, I think darrylka may be right that EE has made a change. I heard that Oracle made some changes to Java JRE when they took over Sun. So the latest download could be different from the old.
ASKER
It doesn't sound like Java is really necessary however. If it was, wouldn't the warning say something about it? And Java would be a trusted plugin I'm assuming. It wouldn't be unknown.
ASKER
Turns out I needed to install Java. Why didn't they just say so?
DaveBaldwin--FWIW. The issue of the Java icon appearing in the Notification Area (and in my case causing a delay in page loading) on E-E sites, only, was due to a bug in a new E-E feature. That bug has now been fixed--at least for me. The feature is screencasting.
Thanks for letting me know. I see that the icon is not there now that you mention it. Guess I'll have to check out the 'screencast'.