Threat to Safari?

Hello everyone,

I always visit these forums for help with anything related to mac, but i recently ran into a problem and i haven't found any answers yet.

I was writing a website name into the address bar and i accidentally misspelled it. Once i pressed enter, it quickly redirected me to a website called "surveytakeonline.com."

When on the site, i couldn't press the back button on my browser and it forced me to click "Ok" to enter the site. It then prompted me again to see if i wanted to stay on the site, and later asked "Are you sure you want to leave?" When i finally pressed yes, it allowed me to get off the site.

I have never had this happen to me because i am always careful when browsing, but i just found it a bit weird that Safari didn't warn me.

I haven't encountered any problems and everything is running well. I haven't noticed any changes. Should i be worried? Can these kinds of websites place any kind of cookies on my computer that could steal my information?

I am currently running Mac OSX Lion v.10.7.1.

Thanks in advance.

The best way I've found to deal with those scam sites with the pop up windows with only two options, both of which only lead you deeper into their scam - quit the browser - no matter what operating system you're running.

With OS X, sometimes that's going to mean opening up Activity Monitor and Force quitting the browser.
With Windows, you'll need Device Manager.

There is still, at this point in time, nothing in the wild that can auto download, install and run itself all behind the scenes without your knowledge in OS X. So, if you didn't download and install something, there is nothing.

bobtomay said:

The best way I've found to deal with those scam sites with the pop up windows with only two options, both of which only lead you deeper into their scam - quit the browser - no matter what operating system you're running.

With OS X, sometimes that's going to mean opening up Activity Monitor and Force quitting the browser.
With Windows, you'll need Device Manager.

There is still, at this point in time, nothing in the wild that can auto download, install and run itself all behind the scenes without your knowledge in OS X. So, if you didn't download and install something, there is nothing.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your fast reply.

I definitely didn't download anything and got out as fast as i could. If this ever happens again, i will bring up the Activity Monitor and quit safari like you suggested. It is nice to hear that there are no threats that run without your consent. Security is one of the main reasons why i made the switch from Windows to Mac.

(Thanks again for the info)

The only drag is if you've got your browser set to reopen the previous tabs/windows, it will try and reload that page again when you relaunch it. What a pitr. Gotta be quick and try to close those tabs before they reload. Takes me a couple of tries on occasion.

I don't run into them very often, usually same as you, typed in the url wrong and got redirected to some scummy site.

I usually don't allow my applications to reopen because of that. Although i sometimes forget to disable it and everything pops-up at once on start up.

And i totally agree. I wish some of those sites didn't exist.

As far as I know, there is nothing that can affect os x unless you the user allow it to. One of the main reason I switched to Apple a few years ago along with os x just works dont always have to fuss with it to make it do something.

I've moved your post to a more proper forum; please be sure to check the forum descriptions to find the best place to post.

By posting in the right forum you help people not only find your question faster, but it helps others looking for the same information in the future.

Thanks for understanding!

G4 ibookboy said:

As far as I know, there is nothing that can affect os x unless you the user allow it to. One of the main reason I switched to Apple a few years ago along with os x just works dont always have to fuss with it to make it do something.

Click to expand...

I was very glad to find that out. And it is one of the reasons why i switched as well. =]

cwa107 said:

I've moved your post to a more proper forum; please be sure to check the forum descriptions to find the best place to post.

By posting in the right forum you help people not only find your question faster, but it helps others looking for the same information in the future.

Thanks for understanding!

Click to expand...

Hey, thanks for the help! I didn't realize i had posted in the wrong forum. Will do my reading next time.

Once again, thanks everyone for the quick responses. I am happy to know that there was no harm done when i visited that website.