Problem with tinyurl

[Phileas]

Hi, I'm posting on behalf of my fiance, who is having a specific problem with Tinyurl, and if anyone has any ideas of how to fix it I'd be very grateful.

Firstly, she gets a 404 Error message whenever she attempts to go to the Tinyurl homepage or access any tinyurl link. I've tried using Snipurl and Tinypic, and they pose no problems.

Secondly, she frequents a wedding-themed message board on which most people use Tinyurl to direct link pictures and photos. All of these are currently showing as redexes, which is somewhat hampering her ability to contribute in a meaningful way.

All this started happening around five days ago. She followed all the instructions you give for getting rid of malware, and the problem is still here. She is using IE7 with Windows XP. If anyone could shed some light on this, I'd be very grateful! Many thanks.

[cauzomb]

Stop using url truncating services outside of standard HTML tags.... It's un-necessary and can be used for fraudulent purposes such as redirecting to malware hosts, ad hosts etc... many forums do not use it or allow it to be used by their members. Just use the standard forum url link code {url=biglongurladdresshere}this little link{/url} supplant the standard open and close [ brackets for the scientific doohicky. the text between }here{/url} is the small discription of the link; mousing over the underlined link should reviel the actual URL address. If it does not, you may want to reconsider actually clicking on that link.....

[PhilliePhan]

Caz, man, ya gotta speak English . . . .


@Phileas -- The only thing that springs to mind is a possible conflict with SpybotSD. Does she use Spybot?
It has been flagging Tinyurl as a baddie lately (this ought to have been corrected by now) and might be blocking access......

Best Luck
PP

[cauzomb]

Speaking english is easy, typing out stuff to other people about computer stuff on the internet is not easy. We do not allow Tiny-url links on this site for the above mentioned reasons, spybot may have found a reason as well, maybe cause some of those services are considered "fronts" for adware/tracking software, so that the person providing the URL to be snipped, TINY ~ized, etc could hide their redirected advertisment stuff. Some sites that host and spread badware/malware have been trying to foistware their applications by masking a redirected host site using tinyurl and snip-it etc...

[Phileas]

Thanks for your help guys;

Firstly, Cauzomb: Thanks for the advice. Normally we would not use tinyurl or such sites, but the main problem is that my fiance frequents a message board on which - for some reason, I've no idea why - everyone uses Tinyurl for the purpose of displaying images. I don't understand why they need to do it that way, but from what I can gather, the majority of users do. None of the other users are having any problems with viewing images, only my fiance. And it's only the images that are linked via Tinyurl. Images from other url-shortening sites work fine.

PP: That was something that my partner suspected, and so she uninstalled the program to see if it had any effect, and it didn't. It might be that SpybotSD changed a registry entry that caused this before she deleted it, but if that's the case, I've no idea how to fix it.

If it makes any difference, I've gleaned a little more information about what happened (as I was away at the time). Apparently it began with the computer's internet connection being down. My fiance closed all the windows, restarted, and then found that the Internet was working, but no pictures whatsoever were displaying, only redexes. This was the case for every website she went on. She closed IE and rebooted the modem, as advised by the Internet Connection Diagnostic, and was left with the situation as it is now: a 404 error for Tinyurl and no pictures linked from that site displaying.

Is there any way that this would have been caused by Spybot, or does it sound like something else?

Thanks again for your help, both of you.

[PhilliePhan]

Thanks again for your help, both of you.

Happy to try to help

Could be any number of things. Most likely from some sort of "security" setting, either in IE or elsewhere.
-- Have you looked at the Hosts file? Could be blocking the site there.
-- You might need to tweak IE security settings. Also look at the restricted sites that Spybot likely added.... (those would be the registry changes you mentioned - easiest way to change these is through IE settings.)
-- You might also have her DL Firefox and see if the problems continue when she uses an alternate (and better) browser. That would definitely help the diagnostic process...

Cheers
PP

[Phileas]

PP, thanks again for your suggestions. Actually, something you said in your first post gave me an idea, and the problem has now been fixed. My fiance earlier uninstalled SpyBotSD thinking that it was causing the problem, and then didn't reinstall it afterwards. I downloaded the program and now all the Tinyurl problems have disappeared. I'm guessing we just needed the latest update of Spybot to alter the security settings on the computer, or something.


Thanks again!

[cauzomb]

Maybe windows security was a little higher than SpybotSD's in that windows security wouldn't allow you to view redirected or cross domain content.

It sounds like the people using tiny-url to get around the forum attachment restrictions, good show, cause hosting images/attachments cost a certain amount of money to the forum opperators, those other sites probly use pop-up ads or other ad content to fund the bills of hosting images, but be carefull when clicking on those links that don't show you exactly where it is hosted.

[PhilliePhan]

I downloaded the program and now all the Tinyurl problems have disappeared. I'm guessing we just needed the latest update of Spybot to alter the security settings on the computer, or something.
Thanks again!

You're Welcome! Happy to help