If you have Supporter, you should not see yuku ads on any boards or on any profiles.
If you aren't a Supporter, you may still see ads on gold boards. Board owners can fine tune who has an ad free experience on the board and who doesn't. They may decide that no one sees ads, that only logged out users see ads, that non board members see ads or they may set it so that users see ads until they reach a certain milestone (post count or length of board membership).
There are several possible sources for seeing ads on an yuku that are NOT actually coming FROM yuku. If you see pop ups but you are not inside a topic, the pop ups are definitely NOT coming from yuku. Yuku ads are inside of the topics and should not be generating pop ups.
1. You may have other windows open to other sites that are launching the pop ups.
2. You may be getting a time-delayed pop-up from a website you left some time earlier.
3. You visit the Yuku board FIRST THING when you sign on to the internet, and your ISP or a program on your computer is set to give you a pop-up when you first open your browser.
4. You may be getting pop-ups, banner ads or strange links from a program you have inadvertently installed on your computer.(see below)
5. If you see ads on a gold board or you are a Supporter and see ads on any board, that board admin may have added their own ads. Some admins will buy gold for their board and then put up their own ads, including pop ups.
6. The board maybe inside of a frameset. If you put a board in a frameset for a website, and that website has pop ups, the board will have pop ups too, coming from the website, not from yuku.
7. If the pop up asks you for a username and password, then the most common culprit is that one of your members is linking to images that are on a protected server. Take note of the domain name, and search the source of the page on which it happened until you find which member is doing it. We have also seen this happen with board graphics when they are hosted on a password protected site or when the image host temporarily restricts access to images.
(this is an update from an ezboard faq so some of the names of scumware and spyware programs may have changed, but their replacements will work much the same).
SCUMWARE
It is a growing trend and a reflection of the market bust that many of the "handy" free downloads on the internet these days such as peer-to-peer file sharing programs such as kazaa and well known programs such as Gator are seeking ways to raise new revenue. The way to do this is to sell advertising. They don't however, put a banner ad on your desktop or anything so obvious. No, what they do is try and present you advertising in more subtle ways in hopes that you won't notice, object, or even try to convince you they are doing a "service" to you by replacing ads you aren't interested in with ads that are "targeted" to your taste. Several things that may happen:
1) You will get pop-ups, even on pages that normally shouldn't give you pop-ups. This usually (but not always) happens within the first 10 or so minutes when the program "senses" you are browsing the internet. That is why it often seems to come out of the yuku only, because many people check their boards for posts first thing when signing on the web.
2) You will get normal banner ads on a website replaced (covered) perfectly by a banner ad of the program's choosing.
3) You will see strange yellow or green underlines of certain "keywords" on ANY page on the internet you are viewing, these keywords when clicked will take you to an advertisers website.
4) You will find a normal website link you click will be "highjacked" and instead of going where you wanted to go, you will be given a menu to chose to go to the advertiser's site or continue to the original link.
5) You get redirected to third party websites.
There is a site called lop.com that installs a program that whenever you get an error page, for example, one that should be an yuku error page, it redirects you to one of their advertisers. There is an uninstall link for lop.com here:
There are other similar scumware programs out there I am sure that will also redirect you to their advertisers. The users who reported this lop.com did NOT know they had it on their computers until they started doing some poking around in their registry, so don't automatically assume you do not have any scumware on your computer.
6.You will have your favorites changed, or a new search bar added to your browser, or a 'toolbar' that is full of links to advertiser's sites. Xupiter toolbar is one that does this. How to get rid of Xupiter.
Toptext is a downloadable program made by http://www.ezula.com that works with your browser (kind of takes it over, really) and turns certain words on ALL websites you view into links to an advertisers website. For example, Sony music might pay to have the word 'music' be a link to their site, so if you have Toptext installed on your computer, any time you saw the word music, it would be a link to Sony's website. (Sony was just an example)
If you are seeing strange, yellow underlined links to commercial sites within yuku posts, most likely it is NOT a yuku ad. If you have downloaded any free programs lately, like Kazaa or iMesh (file sharing programs), you may have installed Toptext without knowing it. Look in your C:/ program files to see if you have toptext, and you can probably uninstall it there.
There may be other programs besides Toptext that work the same way. If you have installed one of these without wanting to, you should complain to the company that bundled the Toptext program with their own program without telling you. But the main thing is, these are NOT yuku, they are coming from your own computer.
If you have the google toolbar installed, there is an optional feature called "autolink". Turning this feature on will create links in webpages on certain keywords. For example if you post a book's ISBN number, that will turn into a link to Amazon.com. Only you will see the link or other users who have the google toolbar installed. These are not technically ads, because amazon.com didn't pay google to do this, but if you happen to be another company that sells books it would not be desirable to have links taking readers to amazon.com. You should be aware of this feature and know that you can turn it off and still use the google toolbar.
Read this article for more details
Further reading:
www.freegraphics.com/zz-scumware/
www.ezula.com/news/media_coverage1.asp
forums.zdnet.com/group/
www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,49960,00.html
news.com.com/2100-1023-257592.html
www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,57467,00.html
www.doxdesk.com/parasite/Xupiter.html
You may find this interesting, Google.com, who does NOT use pop-ups at this time, is also responding to complaints about pop-ups at their site, which are not coming from them: www.google.com/help/nopopupads.html
Other programs that will cause ads, either links, banners or pop-ups:
Gator
TOPText
WebHancer
mediasrv.exe
AdAvailable
IconPrizes
EasyLink
Tsadbot
Google Toolbar "autolink" feature
3-29-02 update: add 'onflow' to list of scumware progs that spawn pop ups.
4-4-02 add http://www.vx2.cc/ to the list
5-14-02 add 'Network Essentials' to the list of scumware progs which launch pop ups.
2-1-03 add Xupiter to list of scumware
2/25/05 add Google Toolbar "autolink" feature which places links in webpages (not technically an ad but can be perceived as one)
file sharing programs that bundle ad programs with the download:
kazaa
iMesh
Morpheus
audio galaxy
grokster
If you are getting pop ups on a Gold Community or with a Supporter account, it may be coming from your own computer! It may be a program you have installed without realizing it.
HOW TO GET RID OF SCUMWARE
Check out this program: (courtesy of Leuquarte)
www.lavasoft.nu/ , and grab AdAware. this checks for spyware components that may be running as a process or saved on your computer, that could cause random pop-ups. This removes the bad stuff like Comet Cursor, Gator, Aureate, TopText, etc., etc.
another link to download adaware:
download.cnet.com/downloads/0-10106-108-63806.html
Yuku does not have any connection with AdAware and does not vouch for the safety or efficacy of the program, but many users have used it and recommend it.
another good scumware remover is spybot.
user cwohardy advises:
If you aren't a Supporter, you may still see ads on gold boards. Board owners can fine tune who has an ad free experience on the board and who doesn't. They may decide that no one sees ads, that only logged out users see ads, that non board members see ads or they may set it so that users see ads until they reach a certain milestone (post count or length of board membership).
There are several possible sources for seeing ads on an yuku that are NOT actually coming FROM yuku. If you see pop ups but you are not inside a topic, the pop ups are definitely NOT coming from yuku. Yuku ads are inside of the topics and should not be generating pop ups.
1. You may have other windows open to other sites that are launching the pop ups.
2. You may be getting a time-delayed pop-up from a website you left some time earlier.
3. You visit the Yuku board FIRST THING when you sign on to the internet, and your ISP or a program on your computer is set to give you a pop-up when you first open your browser.
4. You may be getting pop-ups, banner ads or strange links from a program you have inadvertently installed on your computer.(see below)
5. If you see ads on a gold board or you are a Supporter and see ads on any board, that board admin may have added their own ads. Some admins will buy gold for their board and then put up their own ads, including pop ups.
6. The board maybe inside of a frameset. If you put a board in a frameset for a website, and that website has pop ups, the board will have pop ups too, coming from the website, not from yuku.
7. If the pop up asks you for a username and password, then the most common culprit is that one of your members is linking to images that are on a protected server. Take note of the domain name, and search the source of the page on which it happened until you find which member is doing it. We have also seen this happen with board graphics when they are hosted on a password protected site or when the image host temporarily restricts access to images.
(this is an update from an ezboard faq so some of the names of scumware and spyware programs may have changed, but their replacements will work much the same).
SCUMWARE
It is a growing trend and a reflection of the market bust that many of the "handy" free downloads on the internet these days such as peer-to-peer file sharing programs such as kazaa and well known programs such as Gator are seeking ways to raise new revenue. The way to do this is to sell advertising. They don't however, put a banner ad on your desktop or anything so obvious. No, what they do is try and present you advertising in more subtle ways in hopes that you won't notice, object, or even try to convince you they are doing a "service" to you by replacing ads you aren't interested in with ads that are "targeted" to your taste. Several things that may happen:
1) You will get pop-ups, even on pages that normally shouldn't give you pop-ups. This usually (but not always) happens within the first 10 or so minutes when the program "senses" you are browsing the internet. That is why it often seems to come out of the yuku only, because many people check their boards for posts first thing when signing on the web.
2) You will get normal banner ads on a website replaced (covered) perfectly by a banner ad of the program's choosing.
3) You will see strange yellow or green underlines of certain "keywords" on ANY page on the internet you are viewing, these keywords when clicked will take you to an advertisers website.
4) You will find a normal website link you click will be "highjacked" and instead of going where you wanted to go, you will be given a menu to chose to go to the advertiser's site or continue to the original link.
5) You get redirected to third party websites.
There is a site called lop.com that installs a program that whenever you get an error page, for example, one that should be an yuku error page, it redirects you to one of their advertisers. There is an uninstall link for lop.com here:
There are other similar scumware programs out there I am sure that will also redirect you to their advertisers. The users who reported this lop.com did NOT know they had it on their computers until they started doing some poking around in their registry, so don't automatically assume you do not have any scumware on your computer.
6.You will have your favorites changed, or a new search bar added to your browser, or a 'toolbar' that is full of links to advertiser's sites. Xupiter toolbar is one that does this. How to get rid of Xupiter.
Toptext is a downloadable program made by http://www.ezula.com that works with your browser (kind of takes it over, really) and turns certain words on ALL websites you view into links to an advertisers website. For example, Sony music might pay to have the word 'music' be a link to their site, so if you have Toptext installed on your computer, any time you saw the word music, it would be a link to Sony's website. (Sony was just an example)
If you are seeing strange, yellow underlined links to commercial sites within yuku posts, most likely it is NOT a yuku ad. If you have downloaded any free programs lately, like Kazaa or iMesh (file sharing programs), you may have installed Toptext without knowing it. Look in your C:/ program files to see if you have toptext, and you can probably uninstall it there.
There may be other programs besides Toptext that work the same way. If you have installed one of these without wanting to, you should complain to the company that bundled the Toptext program with their own program without telling you. But the main thing is, these are NOT yuku, they are coming from your own computer.
If you have the google toolbar installed, there is an optional feature called "autolink". Turning this feature on will create links in webpages on certain keywords. For example if you post a book's ISBN number, that will turn into a link to Amazon.com. Only you will see the link or other users who have the google toolbar installed. These are not technically ads, because amazon.com didn't pay google to do this, but if you happen to be another company that sells books it would not be desirable to have links taking readers to amazon.com. You should be aware of this feature and know that you can turn it off and still use the google toolbar.
Read this article for more details
Further reading:
www.freegraphics.com/zz-scumware/
www.ezula.com/news/media_coverage1.asp
forums.zdnet.com/group/
www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,49960,00.html
news.com.com/2100-1023-257592.html
www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,57467,00.html
www.doxdesk.com/parasite/Xupiter.html
You may find this interesting, Google.com, who does NOT use pop-ups at this time, is also responding to complaints about pop-ups at their site, which are not coming from them: www.google.com/help/nopopupads.html
Other programs that will cause ads, either links, banners or pop-ups:
Gator
TOPText
WebHancer
mediasrv.exe
AdAvailable
IconPrizes
EasyLink
Tsadbot
Google Toolbar "autolink" feature
3-29-02 update: add 'onflow' to list of scumware progs that spawn pop ups.
4-4-02 add http://www.vx2.cc/ to the list
5-14-02 add 'Network Essentials' to the list of scumware progs which launch pop ups.
2-1-03 add Xupiter to list of scumware
2/25/05 add Google Toolbar "autolink" feature which places links in webpages (not technically an ad but can be perceived as one)
file sharing programs that bundle ad programs with the download:
kazaa
iMesh
Morpheus
audio galaxy
grokster
If you are getting pop ups on a Gold Community or with a Supporter account, it may be coming from your own computer! It may be a program you have installed without realizing it.
HOW TO GET RID OF SCUMWARE
Check out this program: (courtesy of Leuquarte)
www.lavasoft.nu/ , and grab AdAware. this checks for spyware components that may be running as a process or saved on your computer, that could cause random pop-ups. This removes the bad stuff like Comet Cursor, Gator, Aureate, TopText, etc., etc.
another link to download adaware:
download.cnet.com/downloads/0-10106-108-63806.html
Yuku does not have any connection with AdAware and does not vouch for the safety or efficacy of the program, but many users have used it and recommend it.
another good scumware remover is spybot.
user cwohardy advises:
Quote:
Never use either (adaware or spybot) without going into the settings first and telling it to ask you first before deletion and save a copy of the deletions. Then run it, and copy and paste the log file at the respective help forums. They will tell you what is safe to delete.That way you dont lose anything you need. Most programs that you download for free KAZAA/Grokster etc are loaded with scumware and usually wont work after using this because they get rid of the scum which is hardcoded into the program. Both ADaware and SSD allow you to restore items you deleted if you want stuff back.
