Opening certain threads on Grogheads trigger a .swf file download??

Started by Yskonyn, July 26, 2016, 02:40:46 AM

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Yskonyn

Its a problem of which I am not sure if it has to do with someone's signature links, or something. But at certain times browsing the Grogheads forums triggers an .swf file download and it causes and infinite loop op opening new tabs in my Firefox browser.
It's highly annoying and I was wondering if people have come across this before and if there is a fix?
"Pilots do not get paid for what they do daily, but they get paid for what they are capable of doing.
However, if pilots would need to do daily what they are capable of doing, nobody would dare to fly anymore."

bayonetbrant

is it related to the presence of YouTube embeds in the thread?
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Yskonyn

Ah yes that might very well be it.
The filename is some random string followed by .swf.
"Pilots do not get paid for what they do daily, but they get paid for what they are capable of doing.
However, if pilots would need to do daily what they are capable of doing, nobody would dare to fly anymore."

bayonetbrant

plug that random string into Youtube and see what you get.  I bet it's a video :)
The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

JasonPratt

I'm using Firefox and haven't seen it, although it sometimes has trouble recognizing embedded videos and trying to save them to the desktop (via separate save request windows). Not the same as infinite loop loading tabs in my browser, though! -- I haven't seen that yet.

I just checked on a thread with at least one such video (the Star Trek Beyond thread in Movies and TV category), and didn't see an extension at the end of the hexadecimal file name that it wanted to open or save to my desktop. .swf sounds like a shockwave file, however, so it's probably the same problem -- the save window says it's an adobe shockwave file.
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Pete Dero

Firefox prevents you from using outdated software (add-ons).   In this case I got a message yesterday that flashplayer was outdated.
After allowing the blocking of the flashplayer content I also got these small swf files firefox wanted to open or download.
Updating flashplayer took care of it.

Yskonyn

I'll raise the issue again.
It seems to be triggered by embedded videos indeed. Now the current 'Friday-thread' in Computer Wargames triggers it for me;
opening endless tabs in Firefox.
I have to kill the application with Alt-F4.

Is there anything I can do about it? It's quite annoying and Grogheads is the only forum I have these troubles with.
"Pilots do not get paid for what they do daily, but they get paid for what they are capable of doing.
However, if pilots would need to do daily what they are capable of doing, nobody would dare to fly anymore."

Greybriar

According to Wikimedia, "SWF is an abbreviation for small web format, an Adobe Flash file format used for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript."

I use Firefox and have NoScript active so I don't have the problem you are experiencing, Yskonyn.
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chemkid

Quote from: Greybriar on November 24, 2016, 04:48:21 AM
[...]
I use Firefox and have NoScript active so I don't have the problem you are experiencing, Yskonyn.
NoScript is a MUST! noscript, ublock and common sense make the www go 'round... ;)

(HTTPS Everywhere isn't bad either! very useful!! - https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere )

Pete Dero

Quote from: Yskonyn on November 24, 2016, 04:28:20 AM
I'll raise the issue again.
It seems to be triggered by embedded videos indeed. Now the current 'Friday-thread' in Computer Wargames triggers it for me;
opening endless tabs in Firefox.
I have to kill the application with Alt-F4.

Is there anything I can do about it? It's quite annoying and Grogheads is the only forum I have these troubles with.

Check if you have the latest version of flash player

https://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/

Updating fixed the issue a while ago for me.


Staggerwing

I have the latest version of Flash but I still get the .swf downloads. The odd thing is that I don't get it with all the videos posted here, and in some cased I get the download with a resulting big empty spot in the forum post that contained it and others I can still see the YT window ready to play.  ???
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bayonetbrant

sigh...  OK - let me look into the latest update on the video player.  I thought we were up to date, but I might have to try to find a different youtube embedder.
The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

Yskonyn

Quote from: Staggerwing on November 24, 2016, 08:08:57 AM
I have the latest version of Flash but I still get the .swf downloads. The odd thing is that I don't get it with all the videos posted here, and in some cased I get the download with a resulting big empty spot in the forum post that contained it and others I can still see the YT window ready to play.  ???

This I have as well.  :-\

I do have the latest flash player installed. I am willing to install NoScript, but I'll refrain until doing so after  you've made the changes to the video player so I can check wether that would solve the current issue.
"Pilots do not get paid for what they do daily, but they get paid for what they are capable of doing.
However, if pilots would need to do daily what they are capable of doing, nobody would dare to fly anymore."

Silent Disapproval Robot

I sometimes get the save message on my phone, but not on my PC and I use Firefox on that.

The weirdness I get is that none of the photo links Brant posts ever show up on my PC or my tablet.   I assume it's because he's always got the s at the end of https.  I just see a broken green box.