FORUM

For those members using Popup blockers or Norton Anti Virus, and experiencing problems accessing the forum please read the information provided below.

Q: Members with popup blocker and/or Norton Internet Security installed are not able to use the forum properly.

A: This problem is two-fold:

1. The popup blocker is not doing its job;
2. Norton Internet Security is filtering out HTTP referer field

Problem 1. Popup blockers

A good popup blocker should not block requested pop-ups, otherwise it is interfering with your normal browsing and legitimate sites. The pop-up blocker at least has got to have the option to accept and display requested pop-ups.

The pop-up windows we use in our software is by no means "Ads" that have been flooding the Internet everywhere, and we never pop up any windows without user' s "click" first. Therefore, if the popup blocker is killing even requested pop-ups, it is just a piece of poorly designed software (non-selective, interfering with your browsing activity).

Mozilla and Opera both have popup blocking capability built-in in the browsers (selective and effective), and users with such browsers do not have any problem with our software at all and can still prevent seeing annoying ads. However, IE users with popup blocker installed might have problems if the blocker is poorly designed or is configured improperly.

To fix the problem, you can either:

• Set " Enable pop-up" for the forum URL in question in your pop-up blocker software;
• Set " Accept requested pop-up" in your pop-up blocker;
• If your pop-up blocker does not have the options above, choose a better one.

A good pop-up killer for IE (free, very effective and have all the above options for you to choose): EMS Free Surfer mk II, version 2.1.026

Independent popup blocker analysis, with a comprehensive list of testing pages and long list of freeware popup blocker: http://www.popuptest.com/

Problem 2. NIS blocking "referer" info

Norton Internet Security users may have a problem with "referer" being blocked. HTTP referer is a piece of info that is sent back by your browser to the server. Our software requires this piece of info for security reasons, and if this piece of info is deliberately erased by NIS, you will have problem performing " POST" activity with the forum.

To remedy, try this link from Symantec:

How to pass referrer information to specific Web pages in NIS and NPF 2002 and earlier

How to pass referrer information to specific Web pages in NIS and NPF 2003

How to pass reffer information to specific Web pages in NIS and NPF 2004 (thanks to the Tech-Bard)

You can allow referer checking for the forum URL in question, and this is by no means a security problem. Other similar software can also be configured accordingly.

NOTE:

In order to protect the forum and the server from possible malicious attacks, we check the referer field to make sure that all the HTTP POST actions are initiated from within the forum environment. For example, if you have a forum that allows guest to post, without checking the referer field, the forum can possibly be flooded with junk messages. Of course we have other mechanisms to protect the forum software (flood control, etc.), referer field checking is the best way to avoid attacks on the forum.

Conclusion

The two things we mentioned above are only problems if the client side software are not configured properly. In most cases, users can just add the forum URL in question as a " Trusted Site" in the security software to prevent all problems altogether.

IF YOU HAVE NOT REGISTERED TO USE THE FORUM CLICK HERE

IF YOU HAVE ALREADY REGISTERED TO USE THE FORUM CLICK HERE