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MSN.com

jparker402

jparker402

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 7, 2016
570
59
Bellevue, NE
Just spent an hour on the phone with AppleCare Assistance, right after MSN told me what is going on isn't something they can help with. For the last two days, seemingly at random and frequently, I get a pop-up that says "Do you want to allow downloads from "www.MSN.com"? My options were cancel or allow. I canceled for a long time but was getting frustrated. Called MSN, and on learning I was using a MAC with Catalina and Safari as my browser, MSN said there was nothing they could do since they couldn't connect with my screen. The fact that it was an MSN pop-up and my homepage was MSN.com did not impress them. Called Apple. Not long after we started, we decided to select "allow" to the pop=up question. At this point, MSN would send a download with no content to my computer virtually every time I selected anything with the cursor. After a long time of doing so many different things that I forgot, we thought we had it solved. Then shutdown to reset the system, it started all over again. Best suggestion from Apple at this point is to try to find some cooperative soul at Microsoft (wish me luck there).

I have the following questions. First, has anyone else run into this and, if so, how did you circumvent the problem. Two, despite using MSN.com for more years than I care to count, I am about to quit. But what would a suitable alternative for a homepage be? Something that would not use more memory, that would be compatible with all my bookmarks, and anything else one could consider?

It is late; I am tired: am going to go to bed now and have bad dreams about Microsoft.
 
jparker402 said:
But what would a suitable alternative for a homepage be?
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The fastest performing web browser homepage I have ever used is about:blank. I started using this in the Nineties on what was probably NCSA Mosaic back then (as well as early versions of Netscape Navigator) and to this day that is my preferred web browser homepage.

No other browser homepage can beat about:blank in terms of rendering performance.

It doesn't even make sense to set your browser homepage to a search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) since one can configure the browser to do searches in the URL bar (or whatever they call it).

I don't think I have used a web portal (like MSN, My Yahoo, AOL, iGoogle, etc.) as a desktop browser home page for well over a decade. That was about ten years after I deleted Pointcast from my computer. And no, I do not miss Sherlock.

I am sympathetic to your bad dreams about Microsoft. I have a couple of Windows PCs at home and I wake up dreading to find both of them silently upgraded to Windows 10 version 2004 while I was asleep. An unholy nightmare for sure. No one should be subjected to such raw terror.
 
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I rarely visit MSN.com these days, but I'm not surprised with what you're seeing. My parents used to have their homepage set to MSN, and they would occasionally get pop-ups or redirected to another site trying to trick them to think their PC had malware. It turns out this was caused bad ads that MSN doesn't have much control over. I'm suspecting some ad is triggering the download since you say it happens randomly.

As for your homepage, I would suggest just going without out one. For me, I am using Safari's default settings so that new windows and tabs show my Favorites. You can also choose an empty page, which was suggested above.
 
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You can always use the example domain:

It's literally the example domain name for the internet. It goes to a simple web page maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). It's almost certainly not going to have ads.
 
Just got off the phone with AppleCare again. The "problem" (fact, situation, whatever) is that MSN.com has Java Script powering the images in much of the screen, and with Java Script turned on (to see the images) it causes a download to appear in the download file (with whizzing of the symbol across the screen and a ever growing number of download notifications to appear). By turning off Java Script the downloads disappear, but so do the images. We switched to Chrome, but Chrome wouldn't accept Safari's bookmarks, of which I have hundreds, so that was a non-starter. I have just now switched to Yahoo (which does accept my bookmarks); will see how that works. The Apple rep is going to input this to Apple so that maybe the Safari desk will find a solutions. And I may call Microsoft to see what they say this time (which will almost certainly be that a this is all Apple's doing). In the meantime I will see how I like Yahoo, but hold myself open to other options.
 
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I have the exact same issue, only it's constant and the file is named "get-user-id".
Tried removing MSN from the Downloads list in Safari's preferences but the "Remove" button is greyed out until you switch the toggle to "Deny" then the button is black but doesn't do anything when clicked
This is definitely a Safari issue as it doesn't happen with Firefox.
Safari is such a pain it has become unusable!
 
spudsy said:
I have the exact same issue, only it's constant and the file is named "get-user-id".
Tried removing MSN from the Downloads list in Safari's preferences but the "Remove" button is greyed out until you switch the toggle to "Deny" then the button is black but doesn't do anything when clicked
This is definitely a Safari issue as it doesn't happen with Firefox.
Safari is such a pain it has become unusable!
Click to expand...
"get-user-id" is exactly what I was getting. Switched homepage from MSN.com to Yahoo and the problem no longer exists. Really would like to use MSN.com because I am used to it. Perhaps an update will be done to Safari to make the MSN problem go away. To help that along, perhaps you could call AppleCare and suggest it, too.
 
Today, Sunday the 18th, about a week from when this all started, I decided to try MSN.com again. And discovered that (at least so far) the problem has gone away! No idea why; I didn't do anything. Went back to MSN.com again just to keep an eye on it.
 
The Hammer said:
OP stated that Chrome would not accept Safari bookmarks. Post #5
Click to expand...
OP's problem appears to stem from malicious ads, and without an adblocker, will continue to run into such ads whether at msn or yahoo or elsewhere. I've seen many posts on these forums from users concerned they've got a virus/adware/malware/redirect, that an adblocker would have prevented through blocking malicious ads or deceptive buttons or fake pop ups.

Chrome OR Firefox... Therefore if chrome is a non starter because of bookmarks, they could try Firefox.

For sure, there are other ways to block ads in safari, like adguard or pihole or adguard DNS, though I suspect that's a level of complication for OP that's more easily avoided by switching browsers, bookmarks be damned.
 
AppleSmack said:
OP's problem appears to stem from malicious ads, and without an adblocker, will continue to run into such ads whether at msn or yahoo or elsewhere. I've seen many posts on these forums from users concerned they've got a virus/adware/malware/redirect, that an adblocker would have prevented through blocking malicious ads or deceptive buttons or fake pop ups.

Chrome OR Firefox... Therefore if chrome is a non starter because of bookmarks, they could try Firefox.

For sure, there are other ways to block ads in safari, like adguard or pihole or adguard DNS, though I suspect that's a level of complication for OP that's more easily avoided by switching browsers, bookmarks be damned.
Click to expand...
Firefox is an option for sure.
 
jparker402 said:
We switched to Chrome, but Chrome wouldn't accept Safari's bookmarks, of which I have hundreds, so that was a non-starter. I have just now switched to Yahoo (which does accept my bookmarks); will see how that works.
Click to expand...
This makes no sense. Yahoo is not a web browser, it is a website. It doesn't import bookmarks.

There are two ways of moving Safari bookmarks to Google Chrome (the web browser) or other Chrome-based browsers such as Chromium, Vivaldi, new Microsoft Edge, etc.

The first is Chrome > Import Bookmarks and Settings...

You should be prompted to import from Safari.

The second is to export bookmarks from Safari via File > Export Bookmarks and pick a convenient place like your desktop (it's an HTML file).

Then switch to Google Chrome > Bookmarks > Bookmarks Manager > then click the three vertical dots to the right of the "Search Bookmarks" window > Import Bookmarks and navigate to the HTML file that Safari spit out.

All desktop web browsers have a way to export and import bookmarks. It has been like this since the web browser was invented in the early Nineties.
 
To reiterate and perhaps clarify, when I switched the homepage from MSN.com to Chrome, the Bookmarks did not come up. Apple Advisor, as I recall, did not get them up either. Was in a hurry at that moment and not terribly interested in Chrome so tried Yahoo as a homepage, and the Bookmarks did appear. Stopped at that point. Have since gone back to MSN.com.
 
That still makes no sense since MSN.com is a web page (a place on the web) and Chrome is a piece of software not a web page.

But you seem to be satisfied with MSN.com right now.

I hereby bow out of this utterly baffling discussion.
 
Sounds like OP is importing bookmarks into msn or yahoo homepages. Maybe msn/yahoo can do that, as that would be a good place for your bookmarks if a homepage is your thing.

Personally, after I discovered I could set new tabs to open blank back in 1859, I haven't used a homepage since.
 
Erehy Dobon said:
That still makes no sense since MSN.com is a web page (a place on the web) and Chrome is a piece of software not a web page.

But you seem to be satisfied with MSN.com right now.

I hereby bow out of this utterly baffling discussion.
Click to expand...
I apologize that I can't be clearer. I have been equating MSN.com/homepage as where Bookmarks reside. The import thing didn't work for the Apple rep. And, since Yahoo seemed to retain the Bookmarks, that was enough to satisfy me then. I do appreciate your input; it keeps me digging!
 
Like everyone else, I'm still confused too. Are you not using Safari's favorites/bookmark feature? Mine looks something like this when I open a new browser or tab using the settings described in my previous post. There's no need for a homepage like MSN or Yahoo to use your bookmarks.

6fd357807e6c11e99d6c4d0a23e540f6.png
 
iStorm said:
Like everyone else, I'm still confused too. Are you not using Safari's favorites/bookmark feature? Mine looks something like this when I open a new browser or tab using the settings described in my previous post. There's no need for a homepage like MSN or Yahoo to use your bookmarks.

View attachment 935645
Click to expand...
No, I am not using favorites in the window you show above or in the sidebar to the left on my screen. I use the bookmarks tab above the address bar. Don't know why; that is just how I learned on my own. Have used a homepage since I was weened off DOS (which I was never good at), and rather like MSN.com for entertainment/news value, if nothing else. I was obviously wrong in believing that bookmarks were somehow affiliated with Safari. Since Safari and "bookmarks" are both on the same horizontal line (along with file, edit view, etc), I guess I fell into the trap of believing there was a connection. Sorry I am confusing people. But I am learning a lot!
 
I just started getting this “Download User-ID” on my iPad today on MSN.com. It is pretty frustrating. I don’t understand why it would suddenly start out of the blue this afternoon.

I do like msn.com/ca as a landing page to get a variety of news articles from a variety of sources.
 
I have also just recently started getting this on my ipad air. Pops up on the MSN home page. I tried this suggestion: "Go to Settings>Safari>Clear History and Website Data. Force close Safari. Restart your iPad", but it didn't work. I wonder if there's reputable malware blocking app for ios that would take care of this?
 
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