Yahoo! Video — Mania_t_v **A Warning**
One of the projects I’m involved in is rating for Google. What I do in a nutshell is rate the validity search strings for sites, images, etc…
Today I had a particular search, actually I don’t remember exactly what the search term was, but it landed me on a page from Yahoo! Video. The page a directory of videos from a user called Mania_t_v. Frankly the videos were pretty useless, as they all seemed to be advertisements for the site called mania.tv, an online TV site. Now before you go checking out the site… don’t! After checking out some of the videos, although I’m not really into the topic (Hollywood gossip), I thought I would check out the site. The first time I tried my browser Firefox crashed. Ok, odd… So, I started Firefox again and chose restore session. It tried to access the site again, and BOOM! Not only did my browser crash, my computer crashed and restarted with a whole bunch of errors! I am currently running AVG Anti-Virus and Ad-Aware (I recommend both) to see what they infected the computer with. So far all I’ve found is some cookies that seem to be a bit dangerous, but I’m sure I’ll find something else considering none of my audio drivers work now…
So in short: Stay away from maniatv.com I don’t know if it is one of their advertisers that is malicious or those running the site. Hopefully Yahoo! Video will investigate this as well, because if someone is using there service to lure people to their site and then dumping Spy/Malware onto their machines. It could tarnish the image of Yahoo! And this only shortly after I was so happy with their service…
March 16th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
The reason why ManiaTV pops up is not because it is malicious…they are doing media buys on a network called the AdOn Network which is a network of adware/spyware distributors who offer targeted advertising based on key word and website searches like Yahoo! Video.
You got yourself a pop up because deep in your system you have remnant spyware /adware applications and haven’t done your cleaning with Ad Aware. In any case the advertiser (maniatv) is negligent because they probably didn’t know that this is how AdOn works along with many other advertisers who just want to get in front of people.
In short stay away from Porn and Downloadable ActiveX stuff that is out there. ManiaTV still has great content apart from all this…
March 16th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Viabuzz,
Your explanation of AdOn Network is interesting, but I don’t believe you fully read my post. I came across the short videos on Yahoo! Video through a search query result from the work that I do for Google. I entered ManiTV.com in my browser manually. When their site was loading it blasted my system. So, something on their site, be it something of their own or an advertisement, was causing problems.
As for you comment, “You got yourself a pop up because deep in your system you have remnant spyware /adware applications and haven’t done your cleaning with Ad Aware.” I am very adamant about cleaning the machines that I work on and keep them virus/spyware free, particularly because of the work I do. Because of this fact, I am confident that there is no spyware deep in my system that would have reacted to the site. In fact, I regularly use scan my computers with AVG, Ad-Aware and Spy Sweeper, as well as the occasional Hijack This scan.
You are correct in saying that ActiveX downloads are a dangerous. I was just reading that Symantec recorded 51 exploits targeting ActiveX in 2006. This is compared to 15 in 2005. However, these exploits are not unique to porn sites.
After running a number of scans and sifting though error logs, I was able to determine that the errors and system crash occurred when accessing the ManiaTV! site. However, on the positive side, I was unable to find any spyware, malware or viruses. I also restored my drivers and everything seems to be functioning as normal. So, if it was something bad, it doesn’t appear to have gained access to my system.
Bryan
March 18th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
On behalf of ManiaTV! I wanted to let you know that we do appreciate your comments regarding incompatability of our site and other tech issues. Be assured that we are working aggressivley to ensure a great user experience for our users.
As for your other comments, we have no relationship whatsoever with any spyware/malware applications but will investigate our site being used in any malicious way.
As for your disfavor of some of our content, we respect your opinion. The content to which you referred represents less than 5% of our programming offerings and we’re hopeful you’ll give us another chance and check out more of what we offer our viewers.
Thanks.
Peter C
March 19th, 2007 at 10:41 am
Peter C,
Thanks for posting your comments. I apologize if I seemed overly harsh in my criticism of the site. I applaud companies that are providing unique video content and that are implementing aspects of the so called Web2.0. However, doing this in a responsible manner is also critical. It’s definitely a good sign that you are actively addressing any issues or complaints that people may be having with your site.
About my comment on the content (Hollywood Gossip), that’s just my own personal preference and has no reflection on the functionality of the site, nor how the site/service should be evaluated. Unfortunately I was unable to view any other content, as I couldn’t access the site. With that said… I am very interested in sites such as ManiaTV!, because I believe they are the future of the web. As the internet because more and more a part of everyday life, sites like this are leveling the playing field for where we get our information. Cable companies and TV stations no longer have a strangle hold on media, and with the development of independent content providers we are no longer at the mercy of the large media companies for how we are entertained and are no longer fed the news the way they want us to see it.
Good luck ManiaTV! Hopefully my experience was is not the norm and sometime I’ll be able to view the rest of the site. As soon as I can, I’ll post my comments here.
Bryan
March 29th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
As with most companies, I run stats software on all my sites. It is used to track the number of visitors, pages visited, etc. One of the things that is particularly interesting is what search queries people have used to find the sites. The search query from which e-Life has received the most hits, is ‘maniatv spyware’. Other queries include, ‘maniatv adware’ and ‘maniatv virus’ That’s particularly interesting considering my recent post. That means that other people are experiencing issues with the site. I wonder what the people at ManiaTV have to say about that???