In2010 individuals who read my blog site informed me suddenly McAfee business anti-virus software application was stating my website was wicked and would not let individuals read it. I wondered why. It’s simply a blog site. As far as I understand, there never ever has actually been software application on this website that validated such a label. #
- Here’s the story. One day, I had the entire website in a folder on a regional disk, and believed, why not zip this up and make it a download on the website. Maybe one day in case there’s a failure on my server, in the 23 rd Century possibly, it may be good to have a couple of extra copies out there. Or somebody may think about something cool to do with it today. I figured there weren’t a lot of archives that linked-out as much as mine does, that return as far as it does. #
- There were in fact a few of these files, and a DLL for Frontier and a zip file including Frontier 4.2.3, a long-lived release for the Mac from the mid-90 s. Widely released. Curiously Frontier and the DLL are the files I would have been most worried about, however they provided a low “annoyance level.” The others, which actually freaked them out, were zip files including HTML and OPML files. Obviously safe, however you ‘d need to look inside the archive to see that, I think. Here’s the writeup. #
- McAfee, on crawling my website, saw a zip file, and without looking within, figured I was doing something bad, and kept their consumers from the entire website. When I called them, they stated essentially exactly what Google states about HTTPS, you can eliminate the issue by eliminating the file. I stated no no thanks. I am not going to let a meaningless bot inform me exactly what I can and cannot compose. What follows? Will it be thought about malware to slam the federal government? And will Google, next year, think about criticism of Google to be “not secure?” #
- I ‘d rather not even take the primary step down that domino effect. We understand how this goes. Feeling empowered, Google will wish to work out more control. AMP is a fine example. I do not support that either. They took control of RSS readers, and after that discarded the users. Was that benign or harmful? It does not matter, the net-effect is the exact same. They are royalty and we are topics. I understand developers get that method. I have actually seen it over and over. They understand, without looking, much better than everybody else, exactly what’s finest for us. They do not. But that does not stop them from acting upon the belief that they do. #
- My policy: When in doubt, fundamental 1990 s web performance is great for me. If they do not wish to let their users read my website, that’s fine. The workaround is simple. Get a various internet browser. #
- PS: McAfee obviously repaired the issue. They now state scripting.com looks safe. That’s right. They might have even stated “It’s even worse than it appears” and I would have been fine with that. Just do not state I’m harmful unless you can show it (and you cannot, I’m not). #
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