IE8 and Yahoo! A Question...

[Jim Frye]

My wife uses IE8 because a bunch of the web sites she visits will not support Firefox or other browsers. A couple of weeks ago a strange banner started popping up when IE8 loads with Yahoo as the home page.

Here is the contents of the banner that is right below the tabs on the page: This website wants to run the following add-on: 'N' from Yahoo! Inc. If you trust the website and the add-on and want to allow it to run, click here...

I have googled, dogpiled, binged, and yahooed this and have found only one other person who has seen this and there are no hits on what it is. No posts about an explanation or workaround. Even Yahoo has nothing that I can find on 'N'. I am pretty convinced that someone has hacked IE8 for Yahoo and this may be a redirection highjack. We have been ignoring the request and IE8 runs just fine without the add-on. Firefox v3.5.5 does not get the request, so I am certain that it is limited to IE8. I don't know how to block the request and I have not yet found the code in the Yahoo home page (www.yahoo.com) that would be trying to run the add-on.

Has anyone here heard of 'N' from Yahoo!, or have you seen the popup request?

[mac_daddy]

Maybe it is M from yahoo, which the My yahoo content.

You should also use malwarebytes and spybot and adaware to check your machine for any hijacking of the brower

[Jim Frye]

'N' from Yahoo!

Maybe it is M from yahoo, which the My yahoo content.

You should also use malwarebytes and spybot and adaware to check your machine for any hijacking of the brower

I suppose it really could be from Yahoo, but I would think that the add-on would be called more than just 'N'. I have repeatedly scanned the system with malware programs and found nothing. But then, we have never accepted the add-on and it is not listed in the add-ons for IE. It is also not listed as an add-on in Firefox. Firefox is not getting the request for 'N' either. Very curious.

[Rich P]

Oh no! Someone is messing around with IE! How could this happen! Where are the Microsoft Police!

Sorry, I have no patience with web sites which only run on IE...but be that is it may.

I'd try a fresh install of IE and see if that has any impact...probably not. OTOH you could also ask MS why their browser won't work with Yahoo! but since the merger fell thru I don't think you would get a useful response (if in fact you got any).

For the paranoid, this might be a typical MS ploy to induce Yahoo! into the merger? I would not put anything past Balmer.

[steve-norrell]

In my limited experience, the only site that wouldn't accept Firefox was the one that provided information for updating Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Ultimate. I even use Firefox for accessing "MyMSN" and "Windows Update".

You might take a look at what Add-ons and Plug-ins are available. I use add-ons that make Firefox work with Roboform, Windows Update, and ZoneAlarm. I have 10 Plug-Ins, five of which are somehow related to Windows or Windows products.

I use/used Firefox in XP-Pro, Vista, and Windows 7, although my experience with Win7 is the most limited (for now).

Surely there will be someone on this forum with better information than this.

Good luck. Regards, Steve

[Jim Frye]

IE8 and 'N'

I spent a couple of hours last night looking over the source code for Yahoo's home page and see nothing in it that would lead to the request for the add-on. The request occurs after the page has completely loaded, so I still don't trust it. Also, I notice that when you use the URL www.yahoo.com, it gets redirected to www.m.yahoo.com. The m URL is for thier mobile version of the home page and it may go away when they finish the upgrade to the new style home page due on December 8th. The redirect also occurs with Firefox. We are just going to keep ignoring the request that pops up until after Dec. 8th and see.

[Rich P]

Wow, reading source code is a good way to cure insomnia. I am frankly surprised that they make their source code available...good way to invite hackers. Yahoo does lots of redirects to serve up simple stuff and if you have blocked cookies from any of their "aliases" you could easily get broken. For now, as George said, "Good night Gracie".

[dbhost]

I am curious. Why is she visiting sites that are so bone headedly written as to only support one vendors bleeding edge browser?

[shup]

Try doing a google search for,
m.www.yahoo.com vs www.yahoo.com

Also there is a site worth looking at that rates a sites reputation,
http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/m.www.yahoo.com

There is another good virus protection software called super anti spyware,
www.superantispyware.com

It looks like the yahoo thing is just them doing something new. If you run superantispyware with malwarebytes you shouldn't have too many problems.

shup

[Jim Frye]

I am curious. Why is she visiting sites that are so bone headedly written as to only support one vendors bleeding edge browser?

Small sites in the UK and Ireland. Big fan of those countries.

[Jim Frye]

I am frankly surprised that they make their source code available...good way to invite hackers.

You can see the source for any web page.
In Firefox, click the View pull down from the top of the page banner and select Page Source.
In IE, click the View pull down from the top of the page banner and select Source.
Of course you have to be pretty good with HTML and some other page coding techniques.