Total Motorcycle Community Forums

I don't know if this posting will make it past the "censors" but here goes.

Every time I enter this board and click on this forum, I get a quick pop-up window flashing on the screen which then goes into the background. It is usually something for the University of Phoenix. OK fine.

Today, I disconnected from the internet and ran my spyware program (Lavasoft) which showed a bunch of critical spyware. I removed them and ran it again and it ran clean. I then logged in and went to this forum - same pop-up. I disconnected and ran the spyware detection program which showed 5 critical pieces of spyware. I deleted them and repeated this several times with the same results.

So, it looks as though this forums creators are allowing the downloading of spyware onto the computers of those of us using the forum. Perhaps they know about it (and I suspect that they do) or perhaps not. In any case, I won't be using this forum again.

You might want to check it out yourselves.

So long and ride safe (and spyware free)

I don't know if this forum does that or not. I run Linux so I don't really have the spyware problem here.

It is possible that the forum could be doing it. But there is also other reasons it comes right back. All of the spyware programs I've ever used, and its been a lot, I have to clean spyware off of pc's at least once a week at work, show cookies as being spyware. Or a lot of spyware programs find the spyware, and remove it but they don't really remove it. The spyware reinstalls itself on the next boot of the pc. I've seen this happen to many times to mention. Also if you use any of the web toolbars, they are most definately going to be tagged as spyware. Most of those toolbars install spyware when they are installed and then download and install more.

Just some other ideas to ponder on as to the roots of your spyware problem. I also use mutliple scanners. What one misses another will find.

I use spy-bot and ad-aware to scan my computer and they always find something whether I am on this site or not. I would just start using some form of scan tool and not worry about it.

This is an official reply.


Dear Ken (kfranklin) and all,

Total Motorcycle never has and never will have spyware on this site or the forums. Unlike many many websites and forums out there we DO indeed take your privacy very seriously and what you do on line it YOUR business, not ours. Although we are very happy to choose to visit us on the internet (thank you very much, it is very much appreciated).

So I hope that answers your question Ken.

We DO run ads (banners, pop unders, sky scrapers), the normal run of the mill stuff. So you don't get the same banners or get flooded with popups/popunders they DO leave a cookie (not spyware) on your computer. This is normal and important so you don't get a popup every page. All the cookie says to the forum is "I have been here already today, DON'T GIVE ME A POPUP please".

Remember that Spyware and a Cookie is not the same thing. Spyware generally tracks where you go, what you do, and bad things like that regardless of the multiple sites you visit and REPORT back to the ad companies. Cookies just remember what 1 site you were at, settings (like username/password) and are stored on YOUR computer only; no one else can see/view them.

I also run Ad-aware. Ad-aware does remove spyware and cookies too. So what Ad-aware is removing is those cookies that are saying "I have been here already today, DON'T GIVE ME A POPUP please".


I hope this clears things up quite a bit,

Mike.