I've been noticing lately that links from some sites redirect to something called x.vindicosuite.com instead of going where I want them to. I've got it in my block file, so I just get a fail instead of the bogus advertising they're trying to feed me.

This guy says it's Sitemeter doing it. I have no idea if that's the case. This kind of random redirector is a common characteristic of certain pieces of malware, but Microsoft Security Essentials says I'm clean, so I don't think that's what's happening to me. Also, it isn't happening everywhere; only just a few sites (mostly PJ Media, but just now also Random Curiosity).

Anyway, you shouldn't see it happening here because I deleted Sitemeter months ago. If you do, I need to know about it.

If Sitemeter really is responsible for this, they've apparently decided to commit suicide. This is the kind of thing that can make a company a total pariah.

UPDATE: Yup, It's Sitemeter. I loaded the RandomC page into Firefox and stored it "web page complete" into a directory, then used WinGrep to search for "vindicosuite" and found it in a file called "counter.js". The first line in that file is:

// Copyright (c)2006 Site Meter, Inc.

I think I'll let them know.

UPDATE: And guess where it was loaded from?

http://s22.sitemeter.com/js/counter.js?site=s22randomc

OK, I'm blocking sitemeter.com now.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Computers at 06:30 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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