What the fuck, Yahoo?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6298568

by pasticheverb • 13 years ago

2 7 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Why is Yahoo hijacking my (Firefox & Chrome, though I mainly use Firefox) browser and how do I ban them from taking over my default search? I set my browser up THE WAY I WANT IT and it pisses me off that Yahoo constantly changes my stuff. I've done countless searches about how to fix this and going back many years people seem to have a similar issue.

I've tried all of these to no avail: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/952305

Is it possible to have my browser (AND YAHOO) respect my wishes and stop hijacking my browser?

Edit: I don't even use Yahoo for anything, nor ever visit their website, so it shouldn't be some sort of random leeching software that they attached while visiting their site, which is the most baffling aspect about this.

anigbrowl• 13 years ago

My wife uses Yahoo and sometimes logs in on my machine via Chrome. No issue here.

ankitgarg43• 13 years ago

remove yahoo products from your computer, may be that will help

pasticheverb2• 13 years ago

I don't use anything Yahoo. I have been using Tumblr for a couple of years now though. Do you think they are piggybacking some malware with Tumblr users?

sp3322• 13 years ago

The only reason for things to be "set back" after you change them is malware. Seems like someone is abusing a Yahoo referral code to make money off you.

pasticheverb2• 13 years ago

Is there anyway to ban Yahoo's IP, or internet presence from my computer? Being exasperated with dwindling options and Yahoo's insistence on being the persistent friend that you don't want in your life, I am open to completely banning them from my computer.

sp3322• 13 years ago

Oh what I mean is, it's not Yahoo that's changing your settings. There's some malware there that's changing your settings, and then taking credit with Yahoo for getting a legit install. It's abusing Yahoo's bounty program for money.

dylangs1030• 13 years ago

I'm late to this, but if I understand your problem correctly, you could tweak your firewall to auto-reject outbound packets being sent to Yahoo or Yahoo subdomains. You could also do this with a proxy intercepting all the requests your browser makes. Look at the headers and bodies of the packets and see if you can get a sense of what's going on in them to find out origin or referral codes for a possible abuser.

The next step is to remove the malware from your system. I'm assuming that you're using Windows (I don't think that's a dangerous assumption, as I've only ever seen toolbar malware and related on Windows). You'll want to google-fu the details you found in the packet headers. If that turns up nothing, dig around in your registry.

What the fuck, Yahoo?

Related Stories