Am I wrong in thinking this guys attitude sucks? (1 Viewer)

[sean1976]

.. So a few days back I was searching for a program to convert .wav files to FLAC, and ran across a recommendation from a writer at " About.com " about a program. I start to download the thing, and right away my anti virus program fires of some warnings, and my browser is hijacked. 45 minutes later, after deleting / re-installing firefox, getting into the actual config and changing things, and downloading and running an anti malware program, I finally get the thing fixed. I was pretty miffed so I fired off an e-mail to the guy with his face plastered all over the article, and the exchange is as follows:

I just spent an hour fixing my browser and downloading various anti-malware programs after my browser was hijacked by the conduit search engine virus, after downloading a link that you recommended on about.com. Not impressed. Here’s the link to the website LINK REMOVED


I downloaded and installed the first one, you know, the one that you say “ you can easily decline a toolbar blah

blah blah “ - well I declined it, and my anti virus program fired up right away with warnings ( couldn’t stop it ) and I was infected. Try it yourself if you give a shit.


Thanks a lot for wasting my time buddy.

He Responds:

Sean,

I’m on vacation. While on vacation for the past several days, I’ve gotten 5 emails about this. I’ll get it removed the moment I have access to my publishing tools on Sunday when I’m home.

As an aside, why would you assume that I would promote something harmful? The other 4 persons let me know and rightfully assumed that the software author changed something up (common practice, unfortunately). Why would you assume anything else?

----------------------------------------------------------Tim Fisher
Guide to PC Support
pcsupport.about.com
About.com | Do more.



My first reaction is, so what if your on vacation??? you've gotten other emails about it and your going to do it when your home on Sunday? you don't have any associates that can fix it?... If I screwed something up at work, that was continually screwing other people over, I couldn't just say " Yeah well it's the weekend talk to me on Monday ".. And who are these other 4 people who " rightfully assumed the software author changed something " ?? They all got a virus and said what? " I'm sure it's not YOUR fault, But ... " So basically a website with his face plastered all over it gives me a virus and I should feel bad I'm bothering him on vacation and that somehow I'm not very knowledgeable / understanding that these things happen all the time and it's not anyone's fault?? I want to call bullshit on him, - do you think I'm in the wrong or in the right here? DO these things happen all the time? I've certainly not aware of it.

 

[Sam Posten]

Please remove your link to the offending item, I don't want to flag your post as malicious but it seems a bad idea for you to post a link that gave you yourself a virus!As to your q, I assume about.com authors are freelancers with no authority to make changes to articles once posted.

 

[mattCR]

Yeah, I always assume about.com is full of spammers and freelancers and rarely take it seriously. FYI, what tool are you using to convert to FLAC, if I might ask, because there are quite a few good ones out there..

 

[FoxyMulder]

Some good instructions for it's removal at this site below, i use Malware Bytes and CC Cleaner myself, good programs, also some manual removal instructions are included, just in case others have the issue, and come across this post in the Google search engine, i thought i would include the link for the removal instructions.

http://botcrawl.com/how-to-remove-conduit-search-malware/

I'm pretty advanced myself and would be able to go into the registry and remove any entries in there and clean my browsers.

 

[sean1976]

Yeah, I always assume about.com is full of spammers and freelancers and rarely take it seriously. FYI, what tool are you using to convert to FLAC, if I might ask, because there are quite a few good ones out there..

I guess I should have been more careful. It just burns me that someone would have such a lackadaisical attitude. As to your question, I actually use XBMC to rip to FLAC.. but was in a situation where I downloaded some .wav files as a soundtrack to a game, and was trying to get XBMC to recognize them in it's library without having to go directly to it's file structure ( for some reason it won't recognize .wav or PCM in the Library feature ). DBpoweramp and FLAC frontend are what's been recommended to me going forward.

Please remove your link to the offending item, I don't want to flag your post as malicious but it seems a bad idea for you to post a link that gave you yourself a virus!As to your q, I assume about.com authors are freelancers with no authority to make changes to articles once posted.

I've done the above as per your request, but clicking on it wouldn't have infected you, you would have had to read the article and downloaded one of the music programs. But you're right just in case I've taken it off.

Well he said in his reply " he doesn't have access to his publishing tools " while he's on vacation. This implies to me that he does have the power to remove it. In any case whether he does or not, the buck has to stop somewhere, be it with the articles author or About.com themselves. Incidentally the opening line of About.com 's ethics policy states: "At About.com we provide advice and information that are not only practical but trustworthy" ... I'd say leaving one of their recommendations up for over a week that gives you a virus is not exactly "trustworthy". In any case even if he was just a lowly freelancer surely a phone call to one of his associates, or an email, could get it cleared up? .. I did contact About.com directly incidentally, as I don't think it's fair that other people are exposed to that threat, but haven't heard back. I'd say the fact that on the customer service questionaire, where it asks you to enter your current operating system, it lists WINDOWS VISTA( Lol ) as their highest operating system, gives me a pretty good idea of how much they're going to care

In any case I don't usually get my panties in an uproar over these things, and feel a bit like a crochety old man, but on principal it just grinds my gears.

 

[Sam Posten]

Thanks!