yet another technical computer question

[trof]

Sometimes when I'm net surfing I get to a page that has very little "visible" content. By running the cursor over the page I can tell there's SOMETHING there. The arrow changes to the hand, and if I click the page changes.

Would this have anything to do with my using IE and the page was done in netscape? It's happening more often now.

Thanks.

[Friar]

1. I'm not that technical

but you should start with the obvious:

Clear out all temp files and cookies in IE
run a disk scan
run a virus scan

If that doesn't help I'll ask one of my geeky buds.

[papau]

2. Your protection is working - no real problem

You no doubt run a firewall and Proximitron or some other protection that is removing bad code, banners, ads, etc from your pages before they are displayed.

Be happy.

And stop going to those sites!

:-)

[dweller]

3. i've seen the same thing

it will happen whenever i visited the creative loafing site that some editorials were at, and after going there, every page i went to including DU were blank, only with a top header showing up. I would have to reboot and my browser would be normal after that.
I use netscape, not IE and have asked about this here before, never seen a definitive answer to it.

dp

[Az]

4. Its a means of upping a sites hit count

By placing a virtual dictionary of words in white text (or whatever the background color is) they get web crawlers to flag their site and pull them up whenever you do a search. If you highlight the text you will find a huge list of words. Its just flypaper to trap webcrawlers.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. More'n likely it's just an asshole web designer...

trying to show off.

There are so many non-standard ways of using DHTML, Java, XML and who
knows what all else that by the time a browser sees it the page can have an invisible frame or a 1 pixel graphic with a link in it. Or something just really dumb like a graphic with the text and background the same color. Viewing the source code of the page sometimes gives a hint, but some of those pages have hideously inscrutable code. (Undoubtedly generated by FrontPage, or other M$ horror.)

Could be something malicious, so I'd be careful about clicking on it unless you know where the link is going. Those porn pages are great for that.

[trof]

6. I'm no goody two-shoes,

and I ain't sayin' I've never seen a porn site (snigger), but this happens on what are supposed to be just "normal" sites. There was one today in a thread here. Sniggles or something. I'll see if I can find it and put it here.

[trof]

7. Found it. Take a look.

http://www.sniggle.net/scams.php

I see blank blocks in the text that is something you can click on and be directed to another site.
Do you see what I can't?
If so, why?

[davsand]

8. Worked fine for me.

Looks like a page devoted to the scammers and scams...

Here's some copy from the page:

"There's a whole class of sneaky behavior that's designed to move money from one pocket to another under false pretenses. These con games are often just greedy and dishonest, but can sometimes be clever and creative as well.

I'd feel worse about making a big deal about these crooked schemes if there weren't such a cross-pollenation between the most dishonest bamboozles and the sales pitches that fall like rain in every part of the world where mass media and commerce tryst.

After all, the U.S. $45 radionic amulet or the environmentally-safe EuroWash Laundry Ball in the new age catalog, ``free trade'' agreements, website privacy policies, nature shows, public opinion polls, ``reduced fat'' food, the evening news, expert testimony and advertisements disguised as money all use a language of bogus claims and deceptive advertising that they share with more amusing and more blatant scams...

I'm running IE if that helps any...

Laura

[trof]

9. now we're getting somewhere

I don't see "clever" or "radionic" or "Eurowash Laundry Ball".
When I put the cursor over the "radionic" space, it changes to a hand. If I click on it, a split second before the page changes I see "radionic" underlined. When I come back to the page, I can still see it.

Many thanks for helping me define the problem. Now how do I fix it?

[davsand]

10. Those are links.

I have no idea why you aren't seeing them, but they are links.

Laura

BTW, sorry to take so long to get back on this! I'm afraind I'm not much help, but at least you know you aren't on my 'Ignore" list! :)

[trof]

11. kick for the Sat. crowd

see my post #9