Safari popup - Windows virus warning

[tpete]

I know Macs don't get viruses. Here's my issue. I'm running OSX 10.6.3 with Safari 4.0.5. About 5-6 times a day, running Safari, I get the message I'm attaching to this post. It's a fake popup -- obviously fake, because it tells me it's "Windows Internet Security," and gives me a virus warning. The Safari screen behind the image is grayed out, so the message isn't a real popup -- it's part of the screen.

Note:
- This occurs on mainstream webpages, including google search results pages, Yahoo, and the Wall Street Journal.
- The only MS products on my computer are Office for Mac apps, which I've had for years w/o problem. They are not running when the problem occurs.
- I can click close on the Safari window (not the red button on the warning) or the back button, and the msg goes away.
- I cannot click on other items on the page when the message is there.
- [edit] Also, I've reset Safari, clearing the cache and the cookies. No help.

This is really annoying. It's only been happening for about a week, but it happens very frequently now.

Again, I know macs don't get viruses, but does anyone have any helpful suggestions for getting rid of this? Hopefully, I've attached an image of the warning:

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_nmCTsLc3xt8/S...800/Screen shot 2010-04-01 at 10.52.38 AM.png

 

[LPZ]

I know Macs don't get viruses. Here's my issue. I'm running OSX 10.6.3 with Safari 4.0.5. About 5-6 times a day, running Safari, I get the message I'm attaching to this post. It's a fake popup -- obviously fake, because it tells me it's "Windows Internet Security," and gives me a virus warning. The Safari screen behind the image is grayed out, so the message isn't a real popup -- it's part of the screen.

Note:
- This occurs on mainstream webpages, including google search results pages, Yahoo, and the Wall Street Journal.
- The only MS products on my computer are Office for Mac apps, which I've had for years w/o problem. They are not running when the problem occurs.
- I can click close on the Safari window (not the red button on the warning) or the back button, and the msg goes away.
- I cannot click on other items on the page when the message is there.
- [edit] Also, I've reset Safari, clearing the cache and the cookies. No help.

This is really annoying. It's only been happening for about a week, but it happens very frequently now.

Again, I know macs don't get viruses, but does anyone have any helpful suggestions for getting rid of this? Hopefully, I've attached an image of the warning:

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_nmCTsLc3xt8/S...800/Screen shot 2010-04-01 at 10.52.38 AM.png

I remember dealing with this, but can't recall the resolution. Out of curiosity, do you still get these if Javascript is disabled? I seem to recall the NY Times site being affected in a similar fashion months ago. In that case, the Times needed to fix things on their site.

 

[MacAficionado]

Try this

Change your network location.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/8322.html

hopefully that works

 

[tpete]

I've been trying to wait a while to see if any changes help. I didn't get the popup with Javascript disabled, but then again, it doesn't pop up regularly, so I don't know if that was a fix. Changing the network location seemed to help for a bit, but it keeps coming back. Also, I've run MacScan and had some tracking cookies removed, but that hasn't seemed to help.

Anyone? This is annoying.

 

[mac2x]

Try using Onyx to zap all browser-related caches and stuff. I've had some of these kinds of ads before, but they never persist. Often they lock Safari up and prevent you from closing the window or quitting the application. I solve that problem via the command line, but still, I know how annoying it is.