Senzhi Posted January 19, 2009 at 07:06 PM Report Posted January 19, 2009 at 07:06 PM (edited) Folks, OK, I'm going to post this here ... honestly I wouldn't have a clue where to (sorry Roddy & Co.) ... I'm the type of guy that never posts on forums ... but only replies. But this time I need your help. (which proves this forum is worth gold!) I'm subscribed on the net through China Telecom. Recently, the past month or so, I've been annoyed by China Telecom advertisements showing up in my primary IE7 SP2 screen. They show up as an image in my top left corner, on top of the actual page I'm trying to view. Very annoying. Please note, we're not talking about any classical pop-ups of any kind: it's just an image that shows inside my primary IE screen ... on the top left corner ... but big enough to annoy viewing what I was intending to look at. It doesn't always happen, usually 2 or 3 times a day ... and I'm an awful lot on my T60! But even once is too much!!! To be honest: I don't have a clue what they're advertising .... my Chinese skills are still below par. I've tried all classic tools: Symantec (Norton), Ad-Aware, A-Squared, Spybot, CCleaner, RegSupreme (all with reboots), and a complete drive check ... but the problem persists. I've always been very proud to be able to show a clean system to anybody who'd like to see it ... but this time I'm lost. Any folks have the same problem? Even better: anybody got a clue how to get rid of it? Without going legal ... Edited January 19, 2009 at 07:16 PM by Senzhi Perfectionism ... ;o) Quote
peekay Posted January 19, 2009 at 10:53 PM Report Posted January 19, 2009 at 10:53 PM Does it happen with other browsers such as FireFox? Often ads are inserted via a "toolbar" program, but it's possible that China Telecom is injecting ads directly into the web stream via their transparent proxy. One way to check is to use a VPN or a web proxy service and see if the ads still appear. Quote
roddy Posted January 20, 2009 at 02:53 AM Report Posted January 20, 2009 at 02:53 AM Are you connecting via China Telecom software? If so try ditching it and setting up a connection under Network Connections. Like peekay says - does it happen on different browsers? On https pages? When using a VPN? To be honest I'm not sure you're going to be able to get rid of it without making some kind of change to what you're doing, which might not be worth the hassle if it's only a few times a day. Would annoy the hell out of me too though. See also here for the mobile phone version. Quote
Senzhi Posted January 20, 2009 at 06:57 AM Author Report Posted January 20, 2009 at 06:57 AM Thanks Roddy and Peekay for your quick ideas. Does it happen with other browsers such as FireFox? Same problem in Firefox. Often ads are inserted via a "toolbar" program I don't use any toolbars of any kind. Are you connecting via China Telecom software? If so try ditching it and setting up a connection under Network Connections. Like peekay says - does it happen on different browsers? On https pages? When using a VPN? I never use provider software, since it's in Chinese. My connection is set up under Network Connections and through a wireless router (wich also doesn't come from China Telecom). Both connections (wireless and through LAN) give the same result. It doesn't happen on https pages (that would really be a concern!). I can't check on VPN, as I don't use any (I don't really need it). It looks like it's directly injected into the web stream, as Peekay says. Which is why I'm looking for other people with a similar experience from China Telecom. If I'm the only one, then there's absolutely something wrong with my configuration somewhere ... Quote
imron Posted January 20, 2009 at 08:34 AM Report Posted January 20, 2009 at 08:34 AM How comfortable do you feel looking at html source code? You could find the offending code and then use something like greasemonkey to make sure you never need to worry about it again. Quote
Senzhi Posted January 20, 2009 at 06:11 PM Author Report Posted January 20, 2009 at 06:11 PM Imron, it's certainly an idea for Firefox, but I guess not for IE ... and I need to use IE, regardless of me finding Firefox better. Thanks for the tip anyway! Quote
roddy Posted January 20, 2009 at 06:17 PM Report Posted January 20, 2009 at 06:17 PM IF these are image ads, and the images are all hosted on one server (or a small number of servers) you may be able to block them via editing the hosts file - see here. Never actually tried this myself, but I think it might work. Firefox, incidentally, allows you to right click and block images from a particular domain. Quote
Senzhi Posted January 20, 2009 at 07:00 PM Author Report Posted January 20, 2009 at 07:00 PM I'm quite confident with the hosts file. I'll need to follow this up over the couple of weeks though, to see where the image exactly comes from. Thanks for the tip Roddy, I wouldn't have thought of it. But one thing: the image is each time different, so that might be a concern. Regarding blocking advertisements: I use both Adblock Plus & Pro on each browser, separately of course. And right clicking on the image makes it just disappear. ... and, now thinking of it, that's the weirdest part: the image does appear in the primary browser window ... but right clicking on it, as well as left clicking on it, makes it simply disappear. Many people wouldn't be concerned much about this, but I do expect my system to be clean and safe. Obvious reasons. Proud reasons too. Quote
roddy Posted January 20, 2009 at 07:10 PM Report Posted January 20, 2009 at 07:10 PM I'd imagine the adblockers will let you specify domains to block, so you might be able to avoid using the hosts file. But you've still got to figure out where the images are hosted. This isn't uncommon by the way - ie, this poor guy is getting complete interstitial pages. You're actually getting off quite lightly. Price competition from other providers, saturated market - these people have children to feed, y'know. Quote
Senzhi Posted January 20, 2009 at 07:22 PM Author Report Posted January 20, 2009 at 07:22 PM This isn't uncommon by the way - ie, this poor guy is getting complete interstitial pages. You're actually getting off quite lightly. Price competition from other providers, saturated market - these people have children to feed, y'know. Absolutely true. But am I really the ony one here? Because if so, I'm either a test case, or there's something on my system which shouldn't be there ... Quote
gougou Posted January 20, 2009 at 11:59 PM Report Posted January 20, 2009 at 11:59 PM I'm either a test caseThat's way cooler to show off to your friends than having a clean system, you know? You've been selected! Quote
imron Posted January 21, 2009 at 04:03 AM Report Posted January 21, 2009 at 04:03 AM I'm on China Netcom both at home and at work, so I don't have this problem (yet). What annoys me about netcom's service though is that they've set up their own automatic redirect page when you type in a non-existant domain. Quote
roddy Posted January 21, 2009 at 04:13 AM Report Posted January 21, 2009 at 04:13 AM I think the branches in larger cities are under tighter control, and more sensitive to customer complaints. Once you get down to N-tier cities it's probably a bit more Wild West. What annoys me about netcom's service though is that they've set up their own automatic redirect page when you type in a non-existant domain. Yeah, but how else are you going to get to see all the 丰胸 adverts? I think if you use an alternative set of DNS servers you can avoid those pages, although some of the free services will just have their own versions. You could also try typing more accurately Quote
imron Posted January 21, 2009 at 04:29 AM Report Posted January 21, 2009 at 04:29 AM Firefox has a feature where if you type in a word in the address bar and no DNS entry exists, it will do a google search of it. Now when I do this, Netcom's stupid DNS redirect returns that it's a valid page, and so no google search happens and I end up on their portal. Yes, I can get around it by using a keyworded bookmark, but that's one more letter to type :-) Quote
roddy Posted January 21, 2009 at 04:41 AM Report Posted January 21, 2009 at 04:41 AM Hmmm, I use that feature, but I get the Google search. Yay me! Quote
mrx1168 Posted January 21, 2009 at 05:15 AM Report Posted January 21, 2009 at 05:15 AM Hi! I am chinese.. most Chinese don't use IE7 or Firefox..We use Maxthon2.0...It uses IE7 kernel and has many Plug-in like firex....Its Plug-in can filter this ad..you can try it.... And That AD is from China Telecom ...A lot of user who use China Telecom's ADSL have seen them many times.And so do i.......I think that is illegal.. PS: forgive me my bad english,i have just study english recently...... Quote
Senzhi Posted January 21, 2009 at 08:34 AM Author Report Posted January 21, 2009 at 08:34 AM Thanks mrx1168, That answers already the question if I'm a test case or not. ... and where the problem exactly comes from. I haven't had the problem in the past 24 hours, but the next time, I'll see if I can block it through Adblock. Quote
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