GreenguyandJim Fighting Zango

[darksoul]

Jim,
I think the coincidence is a bit too big!
plus you modifyed that .htaccess so badly that you even broke it

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$

this means that users with no referrers won't be redirected
if they have ZangoToolbar. Why would you want that ?

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(.*@)?([a-z0-9-]+\.)*yourdomain\.com(:[0-9]+)?(/.*)?$ [NC]

yourdomain.com\.com(:[0-9]+)? makes no sense either because in mod_rewrite language it means:
"the url might be of the form yourdomain.com:135" or any other group of digits
Is that a new tld extension ?

Using stuff like (.*@)?([a-z0-9-]+\.)* is overkill when you can simply use (.*)? which will match anything.

[darksoul]

Also please note that the javascript history.go(-1)
won't set the referer to adwaresucks.com making

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(.*@)?([a-z0-9-]+\.)*adwaresucks\.com(:[0-9]+)?(/.*)?$ [NC]

useless and the user will be caught into a loop and wont be able to go back to the originating site.

[Jim]

I can't address the code since I didn't write it but I'm sure when the person that did will correct you...or not.

As far as the coincidence, that would be exactly what it is. If you knew me at all you would know that the last place I go is gfy. I would much rather take care of business than to look at Lindsey Lohan's latest nip slips. Our pages look nothing alike. Or are you talking about the idea? I'm sure you and I are not the first to come up with a redirect for people using a scumware program. As a matter of fact, I saw a mainstream site that started doing it in 2003 yesterday.

But go ahead...question my honesty again.

[darksoul]

Originally Posted by Jim

I can't address the code since I didn't write it but I'm sure when the person that did will correct you...or not.

Waiting for that.

As far as the coincidence, that would be exactly what it is. If you knew me at all you would know that the last place I go is gfy. I would much rather take care of business than to look at Lindsey Lohan's latest nip slips. Our pages look nothing alike. Or are you talking about the idea? I'm sure you and I are not the first to come up with a redirect for people using a scumware program. As a matter of fact, I saw a mainstream site that started doing it in 2003 yesterday.

But go ahead...question my honesty again.

I'm not talking about the page. But about the idea.
Notice, I didn't have anything against making your own page
and using that stuff. I don't care, I put the solution there to be used.
But if the thing is indeed taken from there and pretend to be your own solution that would majorly suck, don't you think ?

[Jim]

I agree that it would suck...
And perhaps if you had posted it on a webmaster only board, you might have some type of claim. The fact alone that I only surf webmaster/surfer boards when greenguyandjim is mentioned should be enough. And most times with most people, my word is good enough.

But, if you look at this thread...about post number 19
http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...ad.php?t=35453
you will see my thought process. It would have been a lot easier if I did see your post. I even had to ask our guy what htaccess file I should use. Again, if I saw your post, I wouldn't have had to do that.

All in all, the idea has been around since at least 2003. I have read so much in the past few days about zango so I can't point you to the page I am talking about. (Please take my word for it) But, I suppose that person can come out and say we both stole his idea. And yet, I saw it yesterday and you probably haven't seen it at all.

Truthfully, I didn't see your post. As I said, if I did, I would have asked you to be involved in somthing that is going to be much bigger than just zango. We are basically on the same page with this thing.

There is a ton of work to be done. If you would like to help us, that would be great.

But please, don't question my honesty or integrity. Call me a piece of shit, asshole...etc. But, I have been in this business for over 10 years. And nobody ever questions my honesty. This is why so many people are using adwaresucks.com. Webmasters know I am never going to do anything to hurt them.

[TopbucksTrixxxi]

After being told it's not a good idea everytime this year, I'm glad a few of you have taken your coding knowledge and got pro-active to do something with it.

I will be using it on my sites for sure. Thanks

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by darksoul

giving credits where its due would be nice
http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=667179

Originally Posted by darksoul

...I'm not talking about the page. But about the idea.
Notice, I didn't have anything against making your own page
and using that stuff. I don't care, I put the solution there to be used.
But if the thing is indeed taken from there and pretend to be your own solution that would majorly suck, don't you think ?

Just a question: can you show me where you gave SmokeyTheBear credit for the idea, since he posted this: http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=665894 - on October 13th 4 days before you posted yours?

Or maybe you didn't see that thread? Sorta like Jim didn't see that one or your thread or any of the other threads that you can find by throwing some words into Google?

[darksoul]

Originally Posted by Greenie

Just a question: can you show me where you gave SmokeyTheBear credit for the idea, since he posted this: http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=665894 - on October 13th 4 days before you posted yours?

Or maybe you didn't see that thread? Sorta like Jim didn't see that one or your thread or any of the other threads that you can find by throwing some words into Google?

I really don't see the connection.
Can you point me to where he remotely mentions anything
about the User Agent Zango uses ?

Did you even read what that code does ?
let me quote it for you:

basically what we are doing is setting our sponsor in a frame from an external file that cant be read by zango thus its not "readily" apparent where the hit is going..

[darksoul]

Originally Posted by Greenie

Just a question: can you show me where you gave SmokeyTheBear credit for the idea, since he posted this: http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=665894 - on October 13th 4 days before you posted yours?

Or maybe you didn't see that thread? Sorta like Jim didn't see that one or your thread or any of the other threads that you can find by throwing some words into Google?

btw, this post pretty much proves my point.

Its like: "Yes I stole it, but look so did you, so I'm ok to do that"

peace

[Greenguy]

Ok - you got me I'm not a tech guy - I just threw "zango htaccess redirect" into google, saw that thread come up, saw that it had coding on it that I have no idea what it does, saw the date.....

My bad. I apologize.

[Jim]

It doesn't matter Greenie. You know, Sparky knows and anyone I talked to about this knows that I never saw his post. Hell, anyone that knows me knows I didn't see his post. I don't want this to cloud what we are trying to do.

But please darksole, change your page to not send people to anti-adware software. Unless you found a free one that leaves cookies alone. And if you did, please share.

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by darksoul

btw, this post pretty much proves my point.

Its like: "Yes I stole it, but look so did you, so I'm ok to do that"

peace

That's not what I was trying to say! My point (which is moot now) was that if there is another thread or page ANYWHERE on the internet that's dated prior to yours on how to redirect zango surfers - and assuming that you did not read it yourself - would you too be considered a thief?

[darksoul]

Heres the right code to use

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ZangoToolbar [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(.*)?yourdomain\.com(.*)$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(.*)?adwaresucks\.com(.*)$ [NC]
RewriteRule .* http://www.adwaresucks.com/zango/?ref=yourdomain.com [R=302,L]

on your Zango page:

<?php
$ref = $_REQUEST['ref']
..........
if($ref) {
echo "<a href='http://$ref'>Go Back</a>";
?>

[darksoul]

Originally Posted by Jim

It doesn't matter Greenie. You know, Sparky knows and anyone I talked to about this knows that I never saw his post. Hell, anyone that knows me knows I didn't see his post. I don't want this to cloud what we are trying to do.

I didn't said you did. When I initially posted, I was talking with the
thread poster but you popped out beeing defensive.

But please darksole, change your page to not send people to anti-adware software. Unless you found a free one that leaves cookies alone. And if you did, please share.

My page is a Proof of Concept, everyone should do his own page

[darksoul]

Originally Posted by Greenie

That's not what I was trying to say! My point (which is moot now) was that if there is another thread or page ANYWHERE on the internet that's dated prior to yours on how to redirect zango surfers - and assuming that you did not read it yourself - would you too be considered a thief?

If I'd use something I didn't do, I'd make sure I don't get credits for it.
This thing is hardly something to call someone a thief for, I put it there
for everyone to use. But I think its common courtesy to give credits where its due.

[cd34]

Originally Posted by darksoul

Jim,
I think the coincidence is a bit too big!
plus you modifyed that .htaccess so badly that you even broke it

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$

this means that users with no referrers won't be redirected
if they have ZangoToolbar. Why would you want that ?

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(.*@)?([a-z0-9-]+\.)*yourdomain\.com(:[0-9]+)?(/.*)?$ [NC]

yourdomain.com\.com(:[0-9]+)? makes no sense either because in mod_rewrite language it means:
"the url might be of the form yourdomain.com:135" or any other group of digits
Is that a new tld extension ?

Using stuff like (.*@)?([a-z0-9-]+\.)* is overkill when you can simply use (.*)? which will match anything.

First off, I don't surf gfy, I think I probably have one post there. I never saw your post, I didn't know about your solution, but, I don't see that there is any other way to do a webmaster friendly solution without doing it this way.

So, any similarity is just two people coming up with the same answer for the same problem. I got involved with this from a code perspective yesterday morning after seeing what Greenguy and Jim had done and came up with a solution that was a little more robust and flexible than their first version.

As for allowing the empty referrer, surfers use privacy software which blocks the referrer. Using your example .htaccess, if a surfer running privacy software hits your site, they get redirected to dark5.com, but, since they don't set a referrer, how do they get to click on the link back to your site? Try it in firefox, go into about:config and change network.http.sendRefererHeader to 0 and you should get stuck in the loop. (unless that should be a 3 to not send the referrer -- their config values are a bit cryptic and I didn't test firefox to verify)

It seemed to be a compromise that affected the fewest number of people.

As for properly supporting RFC3986 uri constructs, call me guilty. Ray Morris from StrongBox/bettercgi developed those when we were dealing with hotlinking with a bit of input from the board to make sure that any valid url construct would be covered, but, mangled urls would not be allowed access. I merely copied known tested, valid and working url constructs that absolutely supported every condition we threw at it ages ago.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.yourdomain.com.*$ [NC]

Imagine someone bookmarking a members area as http://user:password@www.yourdomain.com/members or someone surfing from a subdomain of http://www4yourdomain8com.someother.info. The members area one would be redirected, whereas the person surfing from someother.info would be granted access.

If a surfer hits http://yourdomain.com/ -- they would be redirected for not having the www.

I still support the .htaccess the way that it was written in part to conversations held directly with Greenguy and Jim and in part due to conditions I thought of that would unnecessarily complicate issues for a surfer. As you have mentioned the javascript back button doesn't make sense, and that was addressed yesterday in private conversations with Greenguy and Jim as were a number of other issues that haven't been raised yet.

I'll state for the record right now that I didn't take your idea and today is the first that I even knew about it. I commend you for coming up with a solution prior to there being demand.

[spookyx]

I would like to follow up on what we chatted about last night in the channel about "anti zanga approved sponsors" we would be happy to make the banners that were mentioned. hit me up on icq or email me

we at lotzadollars are committed to supporting our honest affiliates and won't put up with these kinds of scams.

we also appreciate all the positive feedback lotza received for takng this stand

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by darksoul

I didn't said you did. When I initially posted, I was talking with the
thread poster but you popped out beeing defensive....

Are you that dense that the fact that this board is owned by Jim & myself and that when I post something that we are doing together, that means it's a joint project & the fact that I was the one that started the tread is moot? This is more Jim's project than it is mine, so when you call him a thief, you have to expect that he's going to reply.

Originally Posted by darksoul

If I'd use something I didn't do, I'd make sure I don't get credits for it.
This thing is hardly something to call someone a thief for, I put it there
for everyone to use. But I think its common courtesy to give credits where its due.

You're not the 1st one to make up some htaccess coding to redirect surfers with adware installed - and if Jim & I have to sit here all fucking day trying to find a page that's dated prior to Oct 17, then that's what we'll fucking do.

[darksoul]

Originally Posted by cd34

...

Hey, I appreciate your long post.
but you don't really know how mod_rewrite works.
There are legit no referer surfers, surfers that come to your site
by typing your url in the address bar.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ZangoToolbar [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
...
RewirteRule .*  http://www.adwaresucks.com/zango/ [R,L]

let me translate this code for you in human language:

If the User has Zango Toolbar installed and he's comming from no referer
or from adawaresucks or from yourdomain then DON'T redirect him.
The user is redirected only if it has Zango Toolbar and its not coming from (no referer) , adwaresucks, yourdomain.com

You can easily see that all no referer users are NOT sent to the Zango page and I really don't see the reason for it.

[darksoul]

Originally Posted by Greenie

Are you that dense that the fact that this board is owned by Jim & myself and that when I post something that we are doing together, that means it's a joint project & the fact that I was the one that started the tread is moot? This is more Jim's project than it is mine, so when you call him a thief, you have to expect that he's going to reply.

I didn't called anyone a thief, and you just proved Jim was in the wrong to begin with.

You're not the 1st one to make up some htaccess coding to redirect surfers with adware installed - and if Jim & I have to sit here all fucking day trying to find a page that's dated prior to Oct 17, then that's what we'll fucking do.

Are you trying to make it excusable for you ?

Its ok, I'll give you all credits, you can apply for a patent.

[Greenguy]

What I'm trying to prove to you is that NO ONE HERE READ YOUR THREAD ON GFY!

2 parties came up with a similar solution - you posted yours 1st & no one is disputing that.

But by you asking for credit, you're saying that Jim did read it & that he stole the idea from you.

[mniki]

Sorry to interupt discussion

It may sound like stupid question but I am not very good at this.
Need explanation about htaccess, Under same domain name have TGP and LL. Would It be enough to put It In public_html folder of my domain name or should I put separatly htaccess 1 for TGP and 1 for LL.

[cd34]

Originally Posted by darksoul

You can easily see that all no referer users are NOT sent to the Zango page and I really don't see the reason for it.

Here's the scenario that I came up with that was a problem.

Surfer with privacy software that doesn't send a referrer hits the site, has the ZangoToolbar installed. They are redirected.

They read through the page, remove the links, but, haven't restarted IE yet. While the toolbar is indeed removed so that the next time they run IE, it won't advertise the ZangoToolbar user agent, their current surfing session will still say that ZangoToolbar is installed.

They click the link at the bottom of the page, continue on to the site.

Their referrer is still blank due to the privacy software, the user is then redirected back to the Zango page.

I saw no simple way to keep that surfer without allowing the empty referrer.

Setting a cookie would be a little nasty and would lump any efforts right back into the antispyware vendors that pop up ads every time someone visits a site. Not to mention, their privacy software probably wouldn't accept the cookie in the first place. Requiring webmasters to install a small script that checked an IP database against surfers that had originally hit the site would work, unless the surfer used AOL and their apparant IP address changed from one of AOLs multiple proxies.

I felt it was a compromise that seemed to affect the smallest group of people without irritating a large number of people.

[darksoul]

well,
Are you so keen on what you did that even if its broken you want to keep it ?
I offered you the easy fix, and this cd guy which I assume is your coder
comes to prove he has no understanding of what he does.

You can apply my fix from above, or make your own fix but don't persist just for the sake of it.

[Jim]

darksole, you are right...I am a theif. CD34 knows nothing about server software, Greenguy is an uneductated ass and guess what???

You are gone...