Blocking Gator
 

For some reason, one of my computers is convinced that Gator is its bestest friend. Whenever one of those annoying "Would you like our piece-of-shit program?" pop-ups appears in an IE window, it's not kicking up a yes/no prompt box like other shitware (Precision Time Manager, for instance). Instead, it goes right to the install screens with a "Thanks for clicking YES on the previous screen" message.

By now, it's an automatic response -- Task Manager, kill the trickler process, then run Ad-Aware to wipe the stain off my hard drive. But it's annoying that it's auto-executing in the first place, as I know damn well that I've never clicked "yes" to their swill.

As far as I can tell, all of my security settings in IE 5.x are as they should be. So what am I missing?

(I know... fix #1 == don't run IE. Fix #2 == run a generic pop-up blocker that'll whack all pop-ups, but for various reasons I don't want to do that on this computer. Is there something I can set to SPECIFICALLY block Gator's droppings?)

uh, im not too familiar with the gator popup, but i would guess its activex. in ie tools > internet options > security, choose custom security settings for internet zone and set all activex items (the first 5 or 6 options) to either prompt or disabled.

~james

I had to deal with shit like this on a daily basis when I used windows. This is why I use Debian now. No surprises, and it just works!

You are so full of shit. Plug in your digital camera and tell me what happens. Or try to watch a DVD. Or fire up Q3. :)

I watched a DVD yesterday on Xine. Gphoto supports piles of digital cameras.

True, Linux is not yet a first-class platform for the FPS-addicted, what can I tell you?

Other options

What are you talking about?? All of those things work under Linux. Gphoto supports my digital camera, I play Quake 3 all the time, and I don't have a DVD player, but if I did, I would use Xine.

And all that stuff worked first time, no problem.

Uh huh.

Well, that's the thing with open source: sometimes you get to play with it before it's done. If you don't like that, ask for your money back and go buy something shrinkwrapped. Bring more money, though.

I bet Gphoto works better first time than your soundcard did on Win2K. :-) Try and get your money back for that.

vsp, try going to Internet Options -> Content -> Publishers. Is there anything listed there?

Ill agree with dham - stuff does fit together instantly allot of the time under windows. But when it doesn't, its just as bad if not worse. Best example i can think of was putting in a firewire card a few days ago (for my ipod i'm getting monday!!!!!!!!!). Windows wizard driver install came up with an error. After asking around a few forums i found the solution - I had to give myself permission in registry to install a driver for that device - windows had decided admin was not privliged enough. Aparantly this happens with most firewire cards. Nuff said.

I like linux, i run it on my server. Not my desktop. Until it is as straightforward as windows _all the time_ its not desktop ready. I simply don't have 3 hours to get my digital camer working, or find out why x won't boot or work out which dependancy for an rpm i needed is broken becoase the database got corrupt. Windows still bites, which is why I'm going to mac.

Actually, it did. You see, I have this thing called <i>apt-get</i>. Installation of programs <i>just works</i>. 2 years ago, my Debian box was a pain in the ass to set up. Since then, though, I've had zero problems because of apt-get. Also, Quake 3 comes with it's own gui installer.

Really, Windows is just a big pain in the ass. If you have problem in Windows, good fucking luck fixing it. It's always a big mystery, and I hate playing Sherlock Holmes. I've never found a problem in Linux that I couldn't find the solution to.

Really, both OS's will give you problems occasionally. It's the nature of computers. But whenever I try to solve a problem under Windows, I feel like the OS is sending me a constant message, that being, "YOU ARE STUPID". I don't like OS's that treat me like a moron. It lowers my self-esteem.

Linux repects me. It shows me exactly what the problem is, even if it knows I won't understand the bug report. Linux knows that I can submit the bug data to a smarter person on irc or usenet, even if I don't understand it myself. Linux does not treat me like a fucking idiot.

Of course, i'm a programmer. So this is my biased opinion. I usually do understand Linux's error codes. People who don't want to know how computers work should probably use a simpler OS. It's a personal choice.

Everything is a chore under Linux. I know, because I've been using it since 1996 (and exclusively since late 1999/early 2000).

Maybe the stuff you get is easy to figure out. But I have fun ones like my keyboard stops working and GNOME deletes my fucking settings. DVD playback is still <b>pathetic</b>, vim is still the only decent text editor, anti-aliasing is still a fucking pain in the ass to set up... Evolution is the best mail program ever (with the possible exception of mutt) and that's about all Linux really has going for it as a desktop OS.

Both Linux and Windows are going to have problems. Both are going to be aggravating. But what I am sick of is <b>solved problems</b>. Like I said, saving settings is a solved fucking problem. Playing DVD's without a hitch is a solved fucking problem. Using a keyboard in the GUI is a solved fucking problem. Copying and pasting is a solved fucking problem. Linux works great on the server, and I can even accept that it's probably a pretty decent workstation operating system, providing the apps you need will run on it. But I'm tired of computers getting in my way. I lost my spark. I no longer give a fuck enough to read fourteen pages on how to get my video card driver set up properly. It should <b>just work</b>. And it hardly ever does. There's always little gotchas.

I'm finding it hard to be away from Linux. I've used it so long, it's all I know anymore. But it's just not fit for public consumption. It's not ready for the desktop, and it never will be. Linux is the Netscape of operating systems. It's a niche player.

I think the telling factor is everyone getting excited about anti-aliasing in desktop apps. Didn't every other operating system have this about eight years ago?

Thanks for the good luck; I got the problem solved. Going through Windows Troubleshooter again pointed me in the right direction with my sound card (I had it plugged into... well, I forget what, but it worked in Linux when it shouldn't have - putting it in the speaker hole fixed it).

The other one was an annoying MSN Messenger icon in the system tray; I asked for help and had an answer next time I was on the Cellar.

How did that keyboard problem I was having in Linux get resolved? Oh yeah. I re-installed X, re-installed my nVidia drivers, re-installed GNOME, re-installed everything... and it still didn't like it, so I put in another hard drive and installed the latest Red Hat. <b>That</b> fixed it.

Linux is so much better. Really.

It's funny cos it's true. But the same goes, by the way, for using MS products as servers.

Windows or Mac for desktop, Linux for servers. That's how it oughta be.

If this is how you feel, then you are clearly not a hacker. That's fine, but it doesn't mean that Linux sucks. It just means that it isn't for you. There are a lot of people, me included, who <i>love</i> doing what you say is a chore. That's realy the crux of the matter.


I don't really understand your logic. They are not solved problems. Each program and each OS has a radically different structure, and you can not just copy-and-paste code willy-nilly and expect it to work. Even if it did work, most of the solutions you think exist are closed-source. What are we supposed to do, ask Microsoft for code that wouldn't work even if we had it? That would be like two miracles in a row each time you tried to implement your "solved problem".



Well, if you've lost your spark, that's fine. But I really wish you'd stop saying, "Fuck Linux, Linux Sucks, blah blah blah". Linux is a great Desktop OS for those who have the hacker mindset. Why can't you just say, "Linux is not for me. Those guys who like solving problems all the time are sadistic."? No, you've got to put it down, and talk like it has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, just because it's not a fit for you. What's wrong with having different OS's for different kinds of people?

I have no idea what you mean by "ready for the desktop". Linux as a desktop is meant for hackers. It works fabulously for that criteria. Don't try to make it into something it's not and then put it down for not living up to your expectations.

Programming is extremely hard. How fast can you whip up anti-aliasing code? It's not like we can just use Microsoft or Apple's source code.

Well, better is a matter of opinion. We all have different qualities we look for in an OS. I would not have done the things you did to try to solve the problem. Re-installing things is never the way to fix something in Linux. It's like swatting a fly with a nuclear bomb. That's a Windows strategy. With Linux, you find the exact problem and fix just that. But like I said, I love computers, and I love fooling with them. Stuff like that isn't generally a problem for me.

So anyway, I just wish you would realize that better is a matter of opinion. There's not some allmighty objective "better" that's right for everyone.

You are incredibly unAmerican tonight. I better make that second call.

Seriously, *something* in that configuration was out of control, something that didn't change back to it's original state until you *completely* started over (as opposed to replacing various things piecemeal as outlined in the litany of woe above, which is not quite the same as "re-installed everything".)

Then when you really *did* reinstall everything, on a fresh disk, everything was fine. And you were never able to figure out what changed on rebooting, before. Thinking about it after the passage of time, it sounds kernelish. Running *without* the nVidia drivers in some way might have been instructive....the way they patch into the kernel ex-post-facto is suspect at best (not that I don't run them here; I just wish I didn't). Juju's original suggestion of trying a bootable Linux CD would have provided some interesting diagnostic information back at the time he suggested it. I've got CLCD here now; it rocks muchly.

It's a big state space out there. Drop breadcrumbs when leaving home. Even on little things like which hole in the soundcard you plug your speakers into, and which plug goes with which mixer channel.

Ok, now getting back to getting rid of Gator
 

Here's the places to look:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Startup folder

And C:\Windows\Downloaded Program Files (where IE puts the COM objects for apps like Shockwave and the Yahoo! games. Yahoo Games = EVIL and will fuck up your browser).

Get the extraneous stuff out of those areas, and Gator is gone.

Too many of my friends that like to share Mp3 music had that coming and got their systems fragged because of it.

Also get rid of WeatherBug, which installs it, as well as most free programs.

Mitch

And about Linux....
 

Damn fine Server OS.

Damn fine if all you do is use IRC, IM, and the Web (Mozilla, XChat, and the various IM clients like GnomeICU, Gaim, and Everybuddy).

Damn fine print server with lpd or cups. Damn fine File Server with Samba. Even makes a VERY good web server with Apache, or a very effective app server with Tomcat, JBoss, or the other Java projects out there.

However, for what I do, the free stuff doesn't cut it.

mySQL = not good, and is lacking features that standard RDBMSs had years ago. It's the Paradox 4.2 of Open Source. Yet people use it, even though there's a much better alternative.

Postgres = Better, but needs better Windows support for more people to use it. However, for straight linux, there's nothing better. Amazing how it does the job.

Then there are the things that people pay good money for, with a very good reason. We don't like spending our time hacking away at this stuff and installing patches all the time, which yes, you have to do with Linux as much as Windows. The difference is that you have to compile a lot of them yourself. RPM and most tools outside apt won't do it. Apache is the only one that got it right, unless you do it yourself.

I like Linux because the stuff that isn't hacks, and has better patches, now exists there. Besides Apache and mySQL, there's now Oracle and DB2, and apparently Oracle is selling very well.

The Kernel is now starting to look very good, and supports all the nice happy stuff in 2.4 that I need for a server. Oracle runs on that platform faster than Windows, because I can strip out most of the overhead and run a lean kernel, as opposed to either running a default kernel, or Windows 2000 Advanced Server, which doesn't have the admin privs.

Most of what Linux people do is a hack. It works, but apart from several major projects, namely the Kernel, Apache, Postgres, PHP, Tomcat, Perl, CUPS, and even mySQL, it's a hacked-together mess. Most of the Linux installations I see feature the above, and people can keep it relatively sound when running.

All I know is that MacOS X is eating Linux's lunch. My next home box will be a UNIX box. And it will run MacOS X. They got it right, and it runs Oracle 9i.

And as a postscript, I got almost everything on the system here running out of the box on Windows 2000 Professional, including the network card, sound card (SB Live!), Firewire card (VIA chipset), the DVD drive, and the USB burner. I added drivers for my ATI All In Wonder Radeon 7500 and my USB 2.0 card. Everything else was smooth, including the external USB 2.0 HD.

In XP, I've gotten everything, including NVidia GeForce series video cards, to come up recognized on first boot. It even got the Mwave modem on my ThinkPad 770X and installed IBM's drivers :). The only thing that didn't, as a test, was the BackPack CD-ROM drive, and that was because I was force-feeding it to Beta 2 to make it crash.

The only Linux distro that ever did that was Mandrake on a Dell Dimension PII-300 I had. Once.

Mitch

Ob topic:
Add *.gator.com to IE's "restricted sites" list. That should stop the downloads.

Ob off-topic:Yah, here's the solution: You're not allowed to play DVDs on Linux! The DVD consortium demands a large wad of money for licensing, plus they demand that DVD players not bypass the CSS encryption. Both of these are impossible under Open Source, therefore you're not allowed to play DVDs on Linux!

Re: Ok, now getting back to getting rid of Gator
 

A much better alternative is Mike Lin's Startup Control Panel applet. It has tabs for HKLM and HKCU for Run and RunOnce (you forgot to mention that one, although it's usually only used by install apps that you probably shouldn't mess with!), plus user- and machine-specific Startup folders. Just go to each tab to see what's there, and delete what you don't want.

Each entry has a checkbox that you can use to disable it as well, in case you're not sure you want to delete it. And even deleted entries show up on a separate tab so you can undelete them. Very well done.

That's not true at all. Yes, a legal open-source DVD player would seem to be impossible, but that doesn't mean you can't play DVD's on Linux. You can run non-open-source software on Linux, ya know.

Intervideo DID make a DVD player for Linux
 

IBM paid Intervideo to make an official port of WinDVD for Linux.

They bundled it with their Linux-loaded ThinkPads. It's called LinDVD.

It's a darn good program.

However, since Linux is associated with IP theft in the worst way, and not with companies that spend a good chunk of cash on software for it, the perception remains that Linux is associated with piracy.

Meanwhile, most DVD piracy happens on Windows, and there are people selling DVD rippers on a fly-by-night basis for Windows. I don't see that for Linux.

It's about 10% of the Linux users that are hardcore anti-IP people that are ruining the chances Linux has of succeeding commercially, because they do this to piss off the people who fork over the big bucks for really good software. That's why you'll probably never see many good products outside the Sci-Tech field for the OS, and very few consumer products. Piracy on that platform is encouraged, and places like Slashdot only encourage it more.

If I was the average CEO of a software company, I wouldn't have my company make a Linux software solution unless the company focused on the Expert Systems/CAD/Sci-Tech field, or was making so much money hand over fist on standard UNIX products that you have to make a Linux version.

Linux is not eating away at the consumer market. It's going after the UNIX market, and the only commercial software packages you will see for it are the ones you see for other UNIX systems, since Linux is decimating players like Sun (Solaris), HPaq (Tru64 [a good thing!], HP-UX), IBM (AIX), and SCO (obvious). This is because those markets are dying, courtesy of Linux.

Meanwhile, think of how software developers make their salaries. It's not on GNU software, or on custom solutions. 90% of the software out there is either packaged or "tweaked" packaged software that has a configured database behind it. The GNU model of professional services just doesn't work at all, because people want what their friends have :).

Mitch

Re: Ok, now getting back to getting rid of Gator
 

Ad-Aware flushes it away nicely (both files and registry entries) with a minimum of fuss and effort, as well as most other crapware droppings.

Getting rid of it isn't the problem. Keeping random web pages from auto-approving it is -- particularly since I'm still fuzzy on _why_ Gator's autoloading and all other crapware gives me prompts, including Precision Time Manager, which is a Gator product.

And, yes, I'd _love_ to use something other than IE on this particular machine. For various reasons, that isn't happening.

VSP READ THIS

Have you done this? This is the list of what IE considers "trusted publishers". Like when you check "Always trust software from ???".

Yep -- that section's blank, and so is "Trusted Sites" under Security.

Anti-aliasing sucks. For linux not to have it is a feature, not a bug. I hate fuzzy text.

As for piracy -- dollars to donuts, most piracy occurs on good old Windoze. But then, I'm one of those hardcode anti-IP people. Having one's efforts suppressed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act tends to push one that way.

Which of your efforts have been suppressed by the DMCA?

Not that I support it; just curious..

He would tell you, but that would involve breaching the DMCA.

Essentially. Actually, telling you would involve providing evidence that I'd broken the DMCA.

I remember reading about it a while back. So that's how I know. :)

Re: And about Linux....
 

You mean for Windows servers? Or Windows clients? The JDBC/ODBC drivers seem decent enough.

Fuzzy text is a lot better than grungy text!