Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Matius · Aug 5, 2007, 04:10 PM

My wife was just browsing some real estate sites and when she clicked a link on the page it redirected her to the Win AntiVirus Pro webpage and brought up a dialog box trying to get her to download the program. She clicked "NO" and the a dialog box popped up which would only allow you to click "OK". I tried to force quit safari and then to restart my PB, but neither would work (wouldn't force quit and trying to restart computer said I must quit Safari first). Anyway I went ahead and clicked "OK". The Win Antivirus website went away and I was redirected to the real estate site that she was trying to go to. Now, I know that is a fake anti-virus virus for Windows, but do I need to worry about this on OSX? I restarted the computer afterward and used Spotlight to try to find some unauthorized programs that might have been installed but found nothing. Not sure what else to do, if anything?

analogika · Aug 5, 2007, 04:20 PM

Don't worry about it.

But DO write the real estate site and let them know what is happening and is costing them business by scaring them away. It's quite possible that they don't even know that their ad site is doing this to them.

peeb · Aug 5, 2007, 04:20 PM

Don't worry. It won't affect you, unless you were browsing in Windows in Parallels or something like that. What site was it? It sounds bogus - if you subscribe to it, you should complain.

peeb · Aug 5, 2007, 04:21 PM

You beat me by seconds!

Matius · Aug 5, 2007, 04:43 PM

I wasn't using Parallels, just straight OSX. The website was realtor.com so it's a major website. She told me she clicked on the advanced search button on the main page and that was the redirect. I went back there a minute ago and tried to recreate the sequence of events and this time it went right to the advanced search feature with no redirect. It just seems strange that it would do that so randomly. At least I wasn't on a PC though, I'd be pulling my hair out now. Thanks for the replies so far.

ghporter · Aug 5, 2007, 06:39 PM

It's an ad server. Randomly the server will provide either a popup or a redirect-I think this one is a popup, since Firefox blocked it when I tried it out.

DO NOT WORRY. You won't have any problems because of this. But DO write to the National Association of Realtors and tell them what analogika said. This sounds like more web hosting-driven than "let's get more revenue from the site by scaring the bejezus out of our visitors".

larrinski · Aug 6, 2007, 12:05 PM

You can install ClamXav, and have it run a scan to find anything that may be on your system. But, as noted above, it doesn't sound like you have anything to worry about.

Big Mac · Aug 6, 2007, 12:27 PM

People really need to educate themselves about what's possible and what's not possible.

analogika · Aug 6, 2007, 01:02 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

People really need to educate themselves about what's possible and what's not possible.

Scams ALWAYS work off the un-educated, the ignorant, and the gullible.

Can't expect everyone to know everything about everything.

Besides, that's exactly why Matius was asking, isn't it?