Hey Tech - what's this adcounter?

[BearintheBigBlueHouse]

Twice today adcounter.aspx has tried to download itself onto my Mac while I've been on Mumsnet. I haven't asked for it and object to it being so forward. Any ideas where it's coming from? Are you trying to further control my life?

[SoupDragon]

I've not noticed it trying to instal on my PC.

[Demented]

Nothing here either.

[tech]

Hello BBBH,

I don't think it's anything to do with us. We don't have any .aspx pages on mumsnet. It could be coming from one of the ad servers I suppose. Are any of the ads at the top of the pages appearing as boxes instead of pictures?

Regards,
Tech

[motherinferior]

Ooooh, Bear, it'll start talking to you and telling you you're Elvis soon.

[maomao]

Bear, I've had the same thing happen to me, too, for the past two days.

[BearintheBigBlueHouse]

..yeah and it is my destiny to search out and kill the boy bands with overblown karate moves and swinging medallions...... (sorry you set me off on one there)

no seriously I think I may have found out what it is thanks to Tech's suggestion - it only seems to come up when the long James Villas ad at the top is replaced by some financial ad or other - it must be their fault. I can't recreate it though - just have to watch out for it and stop the download before it completes I guess. Ta Tech

[bonym]

Oh, I was getting this all day yesterday and it was driving me bonkers!!! Maybe it's just Macs that are affected (makes a change!!)

[tech]

For those of you that are techno minded, these things happen when the web server doesn't set the "mime-type header" correctly. For example, this page is HTML so its mime time is text/html. If it was plain text it would be text/plain. If it was a jpeg image file it would be image/jpeg (and so on). Before the web server sends a file to you it sends a bit of text called a header to tell your web browser what it is.

Now, internet explorer for windows ignores these in most cases, and instead either uses the extension of the file (such as .aspx, .gif, .jpg etc) or looks at the beginning of the file to "sniff" what type it is. So site developers get away with not always setting these headers properly (we have been guilty of this a couple of times). But then if you use netscape or mozilla (or even IE for Mac in some cases), when it sees a file without a header it just says "here's a file, do you want to open or save it", or words to that effect. IE for windows always recognizes .aspx as an ASP (active server pages) file, which as far as the browser is concerned is a plain web page. ASP is a microsoft site development tool so microsoft browsers automagically know it will be html like any other page.

Anyone still reading? thought not.

[lou33]

Ooh Tech thanks, just what I needed to get me all sleepy