One of the problems I had last October was Spam. I had gone about 18 months of this blog with virtually no spam at all. I think I could count on one hand the amount of spam I received in those first 18 months. For some reason, I started getting a tremendous amount of spam in October. I was deleting 25-30 comments a day. The vast majority was when people would use the "anonymous" option to post. I really hated to do it, but I had to cancel that option for people reading this blog. I got a lot more comments with the anonymous option in place. I also got a few headaches for allowing that option (and NO, Juli, I'm not talking about you...wish you would post again). After I ended that option in Blogger, 90% of the spam ceased. There were still some people who felt they could post comments with a google account and I wouldn't catch them. Every comment to this blog is emailed to me. So, I went to comment moderation for posts older than two weeks. The spam was killed off by 99%. I still get a spam comment once in a while. It's usually someone just wanting to leave a link for e-store or some other marketing enterprise. I won't allow that due to charging people to have a permi-link to this blog. Anyway, I hated to end that anonymous option because I lost some valued comments to this blog. But, the situation with spam was untenable. It takes maybe five minutes to get a google account. I don't understand why people are reluctant to do that.
As I stated last week, I have started back to dropping Entrecard after an absence of about a year. Since that time, I have gotten two viruses and one trojan. I've gotten more spyware than you would believe. I have my anti-virus enabled to catch this stuff. But, it can't catch all of it. Avira is the best anti-virus program around, in my opinion. And, it has caught far more than it lets slip through. I really don't want to end my Entrecard dropping after less than a week. But, I don't remember getting this much malware when I was a steady dropper a year ago. What has happened? I doubt most of the site owners are even aware they have malware on their site. Entrecard should be making this a priority if they want to stay in business. Or maybe I'm the only one experiencing this. I don't know.
5 comments:
I got nailed a whil back as well.now in addition to the anti-virus software I have i also added an anti mailware program as well.the program that helped me comes in a free version and a paid version.The free one works great withan anti-virus program.I recoment it.it can be founf at http://malwarebytes.org
Mike, I first started using Malwarebytes about a year ago. The first 3 or 4 times I used it, it picked up much of the malware that I had on my computer. I always update before I use it. However, that program is pretty much useless, at least, in my case now. I used free edition of ESET, a downloadable program and it catches EVERYTHING. I had something called "Goggle Redirect" that took me three weeks to get rid of late last year. Sure, I could have formatted my HD. But, I'm the type to not let something get the best of me when it comes to virus, spyware, etc. Thanks for your input.
Hi David.
I run a blog myself and I know how annoying it can be to have spammers. But what I've done is that I've installed an anti-spam filter that automatically removes the comments with lots of links. Another thing I've done is that I ip-ban people who spam my site a lot.
I just found your site today, and I subscribed to your RSS feed :D
Nice site.
You can check my commenting system out on Streetfarm.dk if you like.
- Jonas Streetfarm
I'm using DISQUS commenting on my blogs, and I love it because of all the control it gives you over what gets through, and does not. DISQUS is very easy to add to a Blogspot/Blogger blog, and it allows you to import your existing comments.
As far as Entrecard goes, a lot of members have been reporting the same problems lately, and one member lost her computer completely due to a repetitive "clicking" virus.
Jonas, thanks for subscribing to my feed. the spam is largely under control now after the steps I took to stop it. Thanks for the invite.
Paul, I have used DISQUS in the past. For some reason, it would conflict with something I have on this blog. Users told me they could not comment as a result. But, like I told Jonas, I have it pretty much under control insofar as spam. Entrecard is an entirely different matter. Something needs to be done. Thanks for coming by.
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