Photobucket - House of Horrors?

[OTW]

I used to have Photobucket== and it worked great. I want to be able to post photos but don't have a right kind of photo hosting service. I just opened a new account from scratch since I don't recall password, etc. OMG! It certainly has changed! Now tons of ads flying at you from everywhere (ridiculous degree), their website screen keeps freezing up, not letting me close the window, etc. And when I finally did, I got a robo-voice message claiming it was from Microsoft with all sorts of scare tactics that my computer has been infected, that my financial and banking info/passwords were being downloaded currently, and that I MUST call their number so their tech department can walk me through how to fix it, and that by the way - if I close the window without doing that, my information will be turned over to (whatever) agency, my computer will be disabled and I will be reported for spreading viruses, with national security infringement consequences (I think it even mentioned a lawsuit or whatever dumb thing). The whole time all this madness is going on, I'm getting creeped out - not by their dumb threat, but by the concern that as they're "amusing" their listener with all this barrage, for all I know they're planting spyware because I'd just uploaded a couple of images off my hard drive. (Don't know exactly how 2-way upload/download permissions work if you've voluntarily uploaded something). In short, it's become a complete "no" to go there again.

I then googled Photobucket Reviews and they're all one-star, people complaining about Photobucket locking up their photos/videos and not allowing access unless you sign up for some plan and the figure $400 kept getting mentioned. In short, I'd say Photoshop is no longer an option for me, lol. Good grief!

So how else can I upload photos? And while at it, Photoshop gave me 3 choices of URLs to copy/paste - one was "Direct," the next was "HTML" and I don't recall what the 3rd one was. But I've run into that before, so once I find another photo hosting service, which of those would I want to copy/paste into posts on this forum?

Thanks in advance for any insights - haven't used photo hosting for a long time so it's like I'm a newbie to it now.

[OregonLuvr]

Are you talking about Photobucket???? Or Photoshop program??

[OTW]

OMG, PhotoBUCKET. LOL. Thanks. Fixing it.

[Bethers]

This is discussed in several posts in the Maintenance Tech room. But here's a quick link for fast and easy picture uploading that's the most recent and best from those topics:
http://photoposting.is-great.net/

[JudyJB]

That ought to be illegal. Think of how many not-so-sophisticated people get taken in by them.

However, I have to admit that I almost got taken in by a fake Dell company about a year ago, so I am probably not too sophisticated myself. At least you caught it as a scam right away.

[OTW]

Thank you Bethers! I posted it here in General Talk because it wasn't (I thought) a technical issue as much as a general warning of my experience that sure seemed anything but up and up, all originating from the Photobucket site. And I tried your link and pasted a photo into this thread (using Preview only) and sure enough it came through. I'm wondering why I didn't have to open an account, and how the heck that photo stays there hosted, otherwise. It didn't ask me for any info at all. Will try it out in the appropriate thread and see if it stays put.

JUDY - you are not alone. The phone scam where some guy obviously in India or Phillipines poses as a rep from Microsoft and tries to get people to get on their computers and follow his instructions (saying that Microsoft picked up a virus on your computer and it's a courtesy call) - many people get scared and do what they say which involves sending money online and if you let it go on, they probably ask for a screen share whereupon some guy in the background uses the connection to suck up your information while you're piddling around with deleting stuff from a file which exists on all computers but looks like bad files. Not alone at all. They also target older people because many of us are not computer savvy. They used to call me a LOT and I would either tell them I'm on MAC or would just come out and ask them, "What would your great grandparents think if they saw you doing this scam and particularly trying to take advantage of older people??" That seemed to upset them. They tend to go silent and then hang up.

[monik7]

I got a text saying it was from Apple and had detected a virus on my phone. It gave an 800 number to call. Dumb me did call and a woman answered saying she was from AppleCare. She was slow to ask questions, didn’t seem to hear me or understand what I said and had an accent. I hung up pretty quickly. They immediately called back and it was a guy this time who also had an accent. I told him I couldn’t talk and hung up. They haven’t called back. What I didn’t notice at first was it said they were from Apple in the text, but at the bottom it showed a copyright from Google. Definitely a scam. I have instructed myself not to jump in reaction to similar instances and take time to think before reacting.
Sandi

[OTW]

I got a text saying it was from Apple and had detected a virus on my phone. It gave an 800 number to call. Dumb me did call and a woman answered saying she was from AppleCare. She was slow to ask questions, didn’t seem to hear me or understand what I said and had an accent. I hung up pretty quickly. They immediately called back and it was a guy this time who also had an accent. I told him I couldn’t talk and hung up. They haven’t called back. What I didn’t notice at first was it said they were from Apple in the text, but at the bottom it showed a copyright from Google. Definitely a scam. I have instructed myself not to jump in reaction to similar instances and take time to think before reacting.
Sandi

You're not alone either! I'm aware of these scams but by the time that voice came onto photobucket's site I'd been SO barraged with ad windows flying up, half of which didn't show any closing X in the right corner, the site froze up again (wasn't letting me close it either) and then whammo, amid all that, this voice claiming it was Microsoft. There was a huge sense of urgency to everything happening at once, and I'm sure that would make someone who doesn't know these scams are out there call the number! And maybe (probably) many of us who do. I just reacted by closing everything out and doing a fast shut-down JUST in case there was some weird script running. When in doubt, close it out.

[Cudedog]

There was a huge sense of urgency to everything happening at once, and I'm sure that would make someone who doesn't know these scams are out there call the number! And maybe (probably) many of us who do. I just reacted by closing everything out and doing a fast shut-down JUST in case there was some weird script running. When in doubt, close it out.

Would I maybe/probably call the number? Um. . . No. Never. I just get royally pissed off when this happens, not alarmed. Alarmed is what they want one to be.

I, too, experienced the freezing of a browser window, followed by stern messages of coercion. I just manually closed the program (in this case, the Google browser) not my computer. I didn't do a "fast shut-down". If ransomware has been installed, when the computer is restarted, the ransomware could be initiated, and one could then be locked out of one's computer.

With my computer still running, I manually disconnected from the internet (which prevents any hacker downloading from one's computer via the internet connection), and then did an "ALT/CTRL/DEL", which manually closed the offending browser window.

It then seemed to me a good time to do a "spring cleaning" on my computer (and it wasn't even spring. . . ).

To start with, everyone should keep in mind that on a Windows system, if a window refuses to close (by using the "x" in the corner of the browser window) one can always do the keyboard exercise "ALT/CTRL/DEL". This should bring up something called "Task Manager".

When this comes up, there should be a list of processes (programs) currently running in the Task Manager window. Select the one you wish to close (if it is a Google window that will not close, select Google), by selecting the process and pressing the "End Task" button.

Still without shutting down (and remaining disconnected from the internet) this is also probably a good time to back up all of your important files onto your external hard drive, or on one (or a few) DVD-Roms.

Um, like right now.

Then, just for good measure, do a Full System Scan using the virus protection of your choice.

Then run it again.

Yes, it takes a while - sometimes a couple of hours, depending on the size of your hard drive - but well worth it. I have used Norton Security for years, and it generally works well with all but the most persistent problems. After running a full system scan, I sometimes will then also run Norton Eraser.

If one is not running some kind of reputable (not free - keep in mind, you get what you pay for - and not Kaspersky) virus/identity/whatever protection software on your machine, one is playing with fire.

You will eventually get burned. How badly depends on what you have - and how much - stored on your machine.

Anne

[JudyJB]

Good advice. Thanks.

The one thing I did do when these online guys showed me the virus on my system and wanted big bucks to fix it was to hang up and then called Norton. Asked them if this could be a real virus their software had missed. Norton took half an hour doing a thorough special scan of my computer and assured me it was clean of all viruses. No charge of course since I keep Norton on my computers.

And I back up everything regularly on multiple external hard drives which I store at kids houses in case one fails.

[monik7]

I’ve had Norton for years on my computer. Part of that had to do with my daughter working as an attorney in Symantec’s Legal Dept. (the Norton manufacturer) and I could get a discount through her. She has recently moved on to greener pastures. I’ll keep my Norton, however.
Sandi

[OregonLuvr]

First thing I do when I buy a computer is uninstall Norton or McAfee. They are both such memory hogs I got tired of waiting for them to finish their boot up. I am not real worried as I dont have anything really important on my computer but I do have anti virus software installed. Good enough for me. I keep any important files on my external hard drive. I use mine mainly for email, Facebook, a few forums, and some games so they can hack away LOL

[OTW]

CuteDog - excellent points, thank you for posting in that much detail because I for one am fuzzy about the steps. But Yup, I realized my error right after hitting Shut Down - anything planted could then execute upon restart. Duh! What you wrote out is helpful because so many of us procrastinate on maintenance anyway.