Thread: Virus?

Joe, if all you have to contribute to this issue is bragging about how it hasn't happened to you/How Liam should cut his left arm to save people and you would not hesitate to cut your nail if it came to that/how much better than Liam you are...

It's trolling. Quite possibly advertisement too. Both of which are infractable. So quit it before you annoy me into doing something about it.

Originally Posted by Serebii

Telling people to log in so they don't get it is somewhat irresponsible Liam. If a virus was piggybacking off of ads onto my site, the first thing I'd do is remove the ads, even if it's being investigated, so that there is no risk of infection at all. You know as well as I do that the vast majority of the visitors to both of our sites don't log in so that's not a viable response to this issue. Yes, it'll cut money in the shortterm, but in the longterm it protects people and the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few

This is irresponsible, how? By telling somebody a solution to help avoid a virus without dumping a whole network? You can say it's simple to dump your ads, because you only have Google powered ads, and then a WoW ad. It's not that hard to keep viruses out of those when one of them is sponsored by Blizzard, and the others are hand-picked by Google.

Originally Posted by Buzz

I was thinking of making a new thread but this one works just as well.

I was gone for a day or so because my computer got ANOTHER virus from Bulbapedia. This time, it was a fake security system and it took a day to get rid of it.

I'd appreciate it if you tried to get rid of the virus so that other people don't have the problems that I do but I'm afraid that bulbapedia isn't safe for my computer anymore.

Am I the only person having this problem??

You aren't the only person having this. I just got that one yesterday, in fact, but I don't know if I got it from here or somewhere else. Either way, I removed it quickly.

'Course, I'm not sure where I got it, but I got one sounding just like the one you mentioned. With the fake security system.

Also, to fix the Internet Explorer proxy thing (I dunno if you already fixed that or not,) go to tools, internet options, click on connections, and click on LAN settings. There should be a check on there next to "Use proxy settings for LAN settings." Uncheck that, and it'll start working again.

Originally Posted by Evil Figment

Joe, if all you have to contribute to this issue is bragging about how it hasn't happened to you/How Liam should cut his left arm to save people and you would not hesitate to cut your nail if it came to that/how much better than Liam you are...

It's trolling. Quite possibly advertisement too. Both of which are infractable. So quit it before you annoy me into doing something about it.

That is the most flimsy argument I have ever heard come out of you. I'm offering my advice as a friend here and it most certainly isn't advertising nor is it trolling.

Serebii does make some good points. By leaving the ads up, we are not only hurting our reputation, but more importantly, we are hurting our readers. If ads are giving readers viruses, we should remove all suspect ads (or even all of them) until the issue is resolved.

Joe - "Friend of this site", and you're the one talking about flimsy arguments? You have never been made yourself a friend to this site, and attacking Archaic's decision on this case in public is certainly not the actions of a friend.

To others: we're aware Joe's suggestion sound sensible. Unfortunately, like so many other simple solutions, they're not really possible to implement. At least not as a "panic button" sort of answer.

Originally Posted by Loveon

You aren't the only person having this. I just got that one yesterday, in fact, but I don't know if I got it from here or somewhere else. Either way, I removed it quickly.

'Course, I'm not sure where I got it, but I got one sounding just like the one you mentioned. With the fake security system.

The fake security system ones have been around for a long time. I used to get them on deviantArt and a bunch of other places, but they all eventually cracked down. This is the first I've heard of it for at least half a year.

Originally Posted by SnorlaxMonster

Serebii does make some good points. By leaving the ads up, we are not only hurting our reputation, but more importantly, we are hurting our readers. If ads are giving readers viruses, we should remove all suspect ads (or even all of them) until the issue is resolved.

That's where the problem is, because if none of them are suspect, all of them are.

Okay, having checked with Archaic (who may be along later with extra details)

Bulbagarden doesn't have the kind of profit margin that would allow us to take away the ads. It's that simple. In order to keep running at reasonable performances, we need more than twice as many servers as Serebii has, and we need the ads to pay those bills.

Taking down the ads is not an available panic button, because the likely result for us is taking down the site.

And we're pretty sure Joe know this.

Would switching from the banner ads to the Google ads do anything? Those are safer, but from what I've heard, they're a pain to code. Of course, the site I was looking on said nothing about how much money they make.

Google ads would not cover our hosting bills, they would bring in substantially less. It's not an option for a long term solution. At most, we might turn on Google ads while we transitioned to a new ad network, but even that is somewhat stretching it.

Well, the plus side is that our site at least runs at a good speed and the ads have ways of being blocked. It may not be convenient or helpful right now, but it shouldn't be a huge problem, right?

Originally Posted by Evil Figment

Okay, having checked with Archaic (who may be along later with extra details)

Bulbagarden doesn't have the kind of profit margin that would allow us to take away the ads. It's that simple. In order to keep running at reasonable performances, we need more than twice as many servers as Serebii has, and we need the ads to pay those bills.

Taking down the ads is not an available panic button, because the likely result for us is taking down the site.

And we're pretty sure Joe know this.

I do know this, and sometimes sacrifices need to be made in order to allow for people to not get their computers damaged

Originally Posted by Evil Figment

Joe - "Friend of this site", and you're the one talking about flimsy arguments? You have never been made yourself a friend to this site, and attacking Archaic's decision on this case in public is certainly not the actions of a friend.

Earlier this year, Liam and I put our disdain for eachother aside and formed a friendly rivalry. Just because I haven't made ammends with you doesn't mean I'm against all of Bulbagarden. I'm just trying to help.

Sacrifices like shutting down the site, Joe? Or become 503garden again?

Neither of these are serious possibilities. Don't act like they are, and don't pretend to be helping when you make it look to our members like there are easy solutions which we refuse to use.

Joe, when a person goes into public and offers their "wisdom" to a group that has been identified as their rivals and is now in a bit of a situation, it's called ego-stroking. If you really are serious about helping, then get on a chat with Archaic and bounce ideas off each other. Otherwise, all this is amounting to is a not-so-subtle, "Oh, what a shame Bulbagarden that you got a virus. So great that my site doesn't have that problem."

I think people will find that compared to the time it takes for Serebii to load, logging in to Bulbagarden won't be much of a wait.