a poorly written toolbar

[keyplyr]

This cute little snippet occurs hundreds of times in my logs today, caused by a toolbar blocking referrer, cookies and scripting (domains exemplified):

XX.X.XXX.XXX - - [29/Nov/2003:11:53:23 -0800] "GET /
<script%20language=\"JavaScript\"><!--%20//%20Start%20of%20AdSubtract
%20JavaScript%20block;%20you%20can%20ignore%20this.%20%20%20%20%20//
%20It%20is%20used%20when%20AdSubtract%20blocks%20cookies%20or%20pop-up%
20windows.document.iMokie%20=%20\"cookie%20blocked%20by%20AdSubtract\";
document.iMferrer%20=%20\"referrer%20blocked%20by%20AdSubtract\";function
%20iMwin()%20{this.location%20=%20\"\";this.frames%20=%20new%20Array(9);
this.frames[0]%20=%20this;this.frames[1]%20=%20this;this.frames[2]%20=
%20this;this.frames[3]%20=%20this;this.frames[4]%20=%20this;
this.frames[5]%20=%20this;this.frames[6]%20=%20this;this.frames[7]%20=
%20this;this.frames[8]%20=%20this;this.length%20=%200;}//%20End%20of
%20AdSubtract%20JavaScript%20block.%20--></script>
http://www.toolbar-origin-domain.com/phpads/adimage.php?filename=cgd.aspx?
bid=7391&afid=64728&adid=1276&amp;contenttype=
HTTP/1.0" 404 1447 "http://www.my-domain.com" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;
MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; Win 9x 4.90)"

Out of all the toolbars and pop-up blockers out there, this is the first time I've seen garbage like this. I use vanilla-linked JS pop-up windows (user friendly) to display tool-tip type info, nothing invasive or automatic. The user must knowingly click one of these links. IMO, this is a poorly written pop-up blocker that doesn't know the difference.

[edited by: tedster at 6:12 am (utc) on Nov. 30, 2003]
[edit reason] fix side-scroll [/edit]

[jdMorgan]

keyplyr,

On behalf of the poor soul who downloaded that POS toolbar, why are you blocking her/him? That enormous URL-string is going to show up in the logged 403 response anyway.

How about a redirect to a page that informs the user that his toolbar is broken, and that he ought to get a decent one (such as the WebmasterWorld green-bar-checking favorite) that actually works? How about explaining how your site uses cookies and user-controlled clickable popups to benefit your visitors, and inviting the visitor to review your privacy policy?

That would be more helpful than blocking him/her.

I agree wholeheartedly that that toolbar sure is messed-up, though!

Jim

[keyplyr]

why are you blocking her/him?

I'm not blocking her/him, just blocking remote linking across-the-board. From the looks of that code, I assume it that this toolbar attempts to re-serve my script, and other examples of this entry in my logs show similar occurances for images/html/etc.

<added>
I mean I wasn't blocking her/him when this happened. I am now. I'm guessing that this garbage will only show in my error_log if he/she (LOL) requests files once at my site, since he/she was at my site a little while before this started.

And I'm not much of a reformer. Building an education page and determining how to serve it to a user who is blocking scripting through a third party app is a bit more than I'm up to, but in theory I agree Jim :)
</added>

[edited by: keyplyr at 2:48 am (utc) on Nov. 30, 2003]

[jdMorgan]

I would guess that the script is being called from a copy of your page in the user's browser or ISP cache, and the pop-up blocker kicks in again, leaving that log entry. It's ubelievably messy, though... :(

Jim