[Chris - AMWSO]

Hi All

One of our affiliates found that he couldn't make LinkShare links work on his PC, upon checking further he found a range of changes to his HOSt file that had been done by Kazaa Lite, once removed the changes stayed...which from what (little I know of host files) of the below means that he could not access anything to fo with LS once removed as the local pointing IP had nothing to refer too...anyone care to expand or put me right please? I have sent to LS to review too.

HOST Changes by Kazaa Lite

127.0.0.1 ad.linksynergy.com
127.0.0.1 click.linksynergy.com
127.0.0.1 www.linkshare.com
127.0.0.1 uk1.linksynergy.com
127.0.0.1 uk2.linksynergy.com
127.0.0.1 uk3.linksynergy.com
127.0.0.1 uk4.linksynergy.com
127.0.0.1 uk5.linksynergy.com

One would imagine that the 127 IP is a local one run through the
software that cause all traffic to be tagged... .

When Kazaa is removed... LinkShare is no longer accessible as this
host file change remains in place

Thanks

Chris

[ecomcity]

Thats the major problem for 98% of "John Q Public" system users. They don't know how to find and replace the HOST file or even what it does. Remove the app causing the problem and the apps dropping still muck up the works.

[Kellie aka Ms. B]

Chris,

Kazaa Lite (not to be confused with Kazaa) has been doing that for quite a long time now and not with just linkshare links. Actually Kazaa Lite isn't the only one to do this sort of thing with the host file. And you are correct, it blocks the end user from accessing the sites placed in the host file.

[Chris - AMWSO]

Thanks Kellie....

Yep you're right there Mike...and of course who do they blame...the site they are trying to reach.

Took 10 emails between me and the aff partner before we found out it was Kazaa that had done this and not a bad link from LinkShare!

Seems to me we have a compliance issue ;)

Cheers

Chris

[waybar]

I was just testing KazaaLite about a week ago, it also blocks all Clickbank hoplinks.
When I completely uninstalled KazaaLite then the links worked again. It comes with
'supertrick' an ad blocker which was causing the links to be blocked. When installing
KazaaLite it gives the option whether you want to install supertrick also, although
it is checked by default and most people install it along with the KazaaLite installation.
I noticed if I unchecked this box during installation, then the Clickbank hoplinks would
still work. Once you install KazaaLite with supertrick though, the only way to get rid
of supertrick is to completely uninstall KazaaLite.

[waybar]

Also, if you have Microsoft Antispyware on your computer, it will give you a warning
before these changes are allowed to happen. All affiilates should be recommending
Microsoft Antispyware to their visitors.

[Dynamoo]

127.0.0.1 is "localhost" - i.e. the traffic just gets sent back to your own PC and doesn't go anywhere. If you're running a web server on your PC (not really recommended) you'd connect to that, rather than the intended target.

Kazaa Lite does this presumably to act as some sort of primitive ad blocker, but there's real concern that it would be possible to use a parastive to alter HOSTS for more important things like PayPal and banking, and redirect them to another site almost indetectably.

[MichaelColey]

I've found that changes to the "hosts" file are almost always the problem when customers report that the links don't work. This will impact ALL browsers, not just IE, since it's basically overriding DNS.