# What is tribalfusion.com and how can I rid myself of its unwanted pop up ads?



## ajapale (29 Apr 2008)

What is tribalfusion.com and how can I rid myself of its unwanted pop up ads?

Browser: Firefox 2.0.0.14
OS: XP
AV: McAfee
ASpWare: MS Windows Defender; AdAware SE Personal
Firewall: ZoneAlarm.

I never suffered from these pop up ads before.


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## WhoAmI (29 Apr 2008)

Grab a copy of Spybot (http://www.spybot.info/), run that and see what it turns up.


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## Seagull (30 Apr 2008)

Has anyone downloaded a screensaver onto your PC recently?


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## ajapale (30 Apr 2008)

Seagull said:


> Has anyone downloaded a screensaver onto your PC recently?


No, the only thing downloaded recently was quicktime.


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## Technologist (30 Apr 2008)

TribalFusion seems to be just another ad-serving site  not doing anything particularly more nasty than tracking your visits among affiliated sites. You should be able to block them by deleting your cookies and then configuring cookie use to dump them every time you close Firefox and by installing the NoScript plugin into FireFox. This assumes the popups only appear when you visit some sites.

If you're getting popups no matter where you go, that's very serious and could be a symptom of malware. Increasingly, the only reliable fix is a rebuild. Do you get popups as soon as your machine starts? Can you change your start page? If you can't change the start page, that's typical malware behaviour.

Beware of spyware removal tools, some of them ARE spyware.


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## NicolaM (30 Apr 2008)

Hi Aj
This problem involves a tracking cookie, apparently a 'behavioural' cookie. This explains how 'behavioural' advertising works. I have known about this type of thing before, in passing, as a friend works in an industry that uses it. I just had not understood how devious it is (or smart, depending how you view it), until I started checking this out. Certainly looks annoying.

Here is some information on Tribalfusion.
That site links to this download which is tested spy-ware free (use free-ware version). I would imagine that other anti-spyware programs would remove it also.
To stop the same happening once you've gotten rid of Tribalfusion  you need to block cookies from your computer.
Internet explorer: here or [broken link removed]
Mozilla: have a look at this
Also use addons on Mozilla as per Technologist (plus Adblock plus)
Mozilla more secure++ than Internet Explorer.
Hopefully this will help (not expert advise, unfortunately, just experience based, but I would hope this will help you sort the pop-ups out).
Apologies for the multiple links,

Regards
Nicola
PS as per Technologist's post: some 'anti-spyware' programs are indeed spyware: I would suggest you google any program before you download, and also use Mcafee site-adviser to monitor for dodgy sites (marked red if suspect site). You need also to do a spy-ware search to make sure nothing else nasty lurking on your computer.
Also AdAware seems less effect now than it had previously, from personal experience, and from reviews that I have read,maybe time to  investigate another anti-spyware program?


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