Funny things on iBook. Possible spyware/tracker crap?

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mangoSharingan

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Hi, I formatted my iBook about a week ago and now have it dual-booting with YDL 4.0 successfully. Please don't ask WHY because it has been asked to death and I have my reasons :D I have been connecting my iBook to my Windows PC using a crossover to backup my files and then I sent it back to my iBook.

Anyways, I have noticed that sometimes when I'm browsing, certain sites I go to are bringing up one or two pop-up windows which I do not notice are there until I press the Expose button. The only way I can close them is by clicking on the window while in Expose, and then using the Cmd+W shortcut to close it (because the 3 coloured-buttons on the top-left are greyed-out). Also, I have noticed that sometimes, an .exe file temporarily appears on my Desktop and disappears the moment I left-click on the Desktop. The thing is that I never had this problem before I formatted my iBook. I'm using Firefox and the settings were the same as last time (ie. Block pop-ups, only allow cookies to sites I use etc...).

Since I have been sending files back and forth between my iBook and my Windows PC, could the problem have originated from there? I doubt it though since I run AVG, Adaware, SpywareBlaster and Spybot regularly on it and it seems fine. Hopefully this issue can be avoided in the future and I hope it's not something serious. Even if it were simply a tracker, I'm just a bit worried because I never had the problem before.

So any guesses as to what is going on?
 
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As for the .exe files, firefox downloads files first as a .exe and then once it's done downloading then it usually changes into the file that you downloaded.. not sure why it does that, but Im sure firefox has it's reasons :)
 
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mangoSharingan said:
Anyways, I have noticed that sometimes when I'm browsing, certain sites I go to are bringing up one or two pop-up windows
They are called Pop-behinds, I believe, none of the pop-up blockers work against them mac or PC.
 
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mangoSharingan

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mynameis said:
They are called Pop-behinds, I believe, none of the pop-up blockers work against them mac or PC.

So funny how I have only started to get them now? Is it a common thing?
 
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pop-behinds, or pop-unders are a recent thing that websites can now do to avoid popup blockers. they are less intrusive and dont **** me off as much (at least until i begin to get many of them)
 
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mangoSharingan

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Murlyn said:
As for the .exe files, firefox downloads files first as a .exe and then once it's done downloading then it usually changes into the file that you downloaded.. not sure why it does that, but Im sure firefox has it's reasons :)

The .exe files which appear on the desktop usually have some numerial name like 012371.exe, which seem to have no relation to files I'm using downloading. Also, I have set my downloads to a different folder elsewhere and not the Desktop. So like those pop-up things, is it a recent thing that is becoming common since I never got these before too?
 
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mangoSharingan said:
So funny how I have only started to get them now? Is it a common thing?

They have been around for a little while, I rarely get them because I just don't go to the type of sites that have them.
 
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The pop-under/behind windows are fairly new, or at least they're becoming more and more popular. They're more sophisticated than the old popup/popunders.

The .exes are a Firefox eccentricity. It will download the file under that name, on the desktop, and then rename and move the file to your chosen location. I don't know why Firefox uses ".exe" as the extension, and not ".temporary" or ".download" or something sensible like that.
 
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mangoSharingan

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I see. Thanks for replies guys. I would just like to that so far, all the pop-up stuff have been coming from even simple and normal sites. As far as I remember, all of these pop-up have been casino or betting ones. Anyways, I hope something can be done soon by the Firefox developers or something to get rid of these.
 

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