Popup message box is driving me crazy! Help ???

S

spoon2001

Sorry if this is OT. But it may be related to a freeware program that
definitely should be avoided! I have Googled like crazy, sent emails, and
posted to forums to find an answer but haven't found anything yet.

I installed Maxthon 1.3.1 yesterday. Since then I am repeatedly getting a
message box that is driving me crazy.

The first message box says: "You have been idle for a while. Would you like
to continue using this portal? Please click OK in the next 5 minutes or
your session will expire for security reasons. Alert time Wed Jul 20
01:37:13 2005."

If I click OK, the following message appears - "If you clicked OK within the
allotted time, your session has been safely extended."

If I click Cancel, the following message appears - "Your session may timeout
soon. Any data you try to submit to the server may not be properly handled
if your session has expired."

Could there be a more stupid and useless series of messages?

Is this message coming from Maxthon or a plugin I might be using? Is a
particular web page causing this to pop up?

The title bar says "Microsoft Internet Explorer".
 
C

CoMa

Could there be a more stupid and useless series of messages?

Is this message coming from Maxthon or a plugin I might be using? Is a
particular web page causing this to pop up?

The title bar says "Microsoft Internet Explorer".


If you use Maxthon,
then the title bar should say "Maxthon Browser"

It sounds like you have got "infected"
with a spyware/adware/hijacker thingy.

Do a sweep with "Spybot Search & Destroy", "Ad-aware"
and "a-squared" and then maybe install "SpywareBlaster"


/CoMa
 
S

spoon2001

Maxthon forum guy says it's not Maxthon, suggested spyware. Ad-Aware
detected nothing but tracking cookies, which I deleted. The message is
still popping up.

Is there a freeware goodie which will tell me what's making this obnoxious
dialog box pop up? I tried Process Explorer, but couldn't figure out how to
use it for this purpose.
 
C

CoMa

Maxthon forum guy says it's not Maxthon, suggested spyware. Ad-Aware
detected nothing but tracking cookies, which I deleted. The message is
still popping up.

Is there a freeware goodie which will tell me what's making this obnoxious
dialog box pop up? I tried Process Explorer, but couldn't figure out how to
use it for this purpose.


Maybe you should install a Ad-aware plugin called "Messenger-Control"
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/addons/messenger.shtml
That plugin close down the "Messenger Service"


Ad-aware don't find every nasty,
so it is better to sweep the system with 1 or 2 other programs to be sure.


CWShredder can remove a bunsh of *CoolWebSearch variants.
http://intermute.com/products/cwshredder.html
http://www.trendmicro.com/ftp/products/online-tools/cwshredder.exe

*CoolWebSearch is a name given to a wide range of different
browser hijackers. Though the code is very different between
variants, they are all used to redirect users to coolwebsearch.com
and other sites affiliated with its operators.



/CoMa
 
S

Sparky

spoon2001 said:
Maxthon forum guy says it's not Maxthon, suggested spyware. Ad-Aware
detected nothing but tracking cookies, which I deleted. The message is
still popping up.

Ad-Aware is not designed for finding spyware. To see whether you have
spyware (and remove it), try running Spybot
(http://www.spybot.info/en/index.html).

-Sparky
 
S

spoon2001

Thanks Coma and Sparky. I am getting the Anti-Spyware religion.

But in this case, guess what? It wasn't spyware.

Those crazy messages were being popped up by a website I was visiting,
namely the ATI (graphics card) support site.

I got REALLY lucky, a gal on the Maxthon forum just happened to read my
message and said she had seen the same messages while visiting ATI Support.

Now IMO it is a very nasty thing for a website to pop up a message like
that, without any indication of the website. I guess that is not a problem
for single-pane browsers like IE, but for tabbed browsers like Maxthon it's
a nightmare. I suspected that it might have been one of my open webpages,
and I should have suspected ATI, but I was a bit dim-witted.

I had SEVERAL ATI pages open, no wonder those messages were popping up like
crazy.

I'm not sure I can understand why a site like ATI would do a thing like
that. It's not a secure website or anything like that.

Thanks again guys. Lesson learned!
 
E

El Gee

Sorry if this is OT. But it may be related to a freeware program that
definitely should be avoided! I have Googled like crazy, sent emails,
and posted to forums to find an answer but haven't found anything yet.

I installed Maxthon 1.3.1 yesterday. Since then I am repeatedly
getting a message box that is driving me crazy.

The first message box says: "You have been idle for a while. Would
you like to continue using this portal? Please click OK in the next 5
minutes or your session will expire for security reasons. Alert time
Wed Jul 20 01:37:13 2005."

If I click OK, the following message appears - "If you clicked OK
within the allotted time, your session has been safely extended."

If I click Cancel, the following message appears - "Your session may
timeout soon. Any data you try to submit to the server may not be
properly handled if your session has expired."

Could there be a more stupid and useless series of messages?

Is this message coming from Maxthon or a plugin I might be using? Is
a particular web page causing this to pop up?

The title bar says "Microsoft Internet Explorer".

In the future, try also Hijack This and/or CWS Shredder.

--
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
El Gee - www (dot) mistergeek (dot) com <><

Did you hear the one about the dyslexic, agnostic, insomniac?
He had trouble sleeping at night, wondering if there was a dog.
Remove yourhat to reply ... but it may take a while.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
S

Sparky

The said:
Not designed for finding spyware??

Relax Seabat;

Let's try it again. Ad-Aware was designed for finding known data
mining, advertising, and tracking components. Ad-Aware is excellent for
this.

Ad-Aware has been beefing up its spyware-detection and -removal
capabilities but, in comparison with Hijack, Spybot and others, it's
dangerously inadequate.
You might even find this link
enlightening: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/default.shtml.en

Nope: Heavy on marketing fluff, vapid on specifics.

Thanks though,

-Sparky
 
J

jmatt

Use HiJackThis.
http://tomcoyote.com/hjt/

HijackThis log file analysis & repair
http://hijackthis.de/index.php?langselect=english
HijackThis is a program used by experienced users in order to detect
browser hijackers. It allows you to identify any sort of spyware and
malware (as well as some trojan horses and worms). This is achieved by
scanning special zones of the registry as well as the hard disk drive,
the results being listed in a structured window. Another feature of
HijackThis is the creation of a log file, which can be saved as a
simple text file and opened by any text editor (notepad as default).
Until now, inexperienced users, who could not analyze the log file by
themselves, had no other choice than posting it in a specialized forum
and to hope that a more experienced user takes some time to analyze it.
The script presented on this page is a way to analyze your log without
help from the outside: simply copy/paste the content of the log file in
the textbox below and hit the analyze button.
 

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