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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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At the foot of the board, and on the front page is a button for a weird outfit called Alexa.
This is meant to rate and track the page and stuff. It's also meant to get a star rating in it when people review the site. To me it looks like a load of weirdness, but I will give it a try for a few days/weeks to see what happens. The address details are totally fictional by the way. Though I did try the phone number and some poor woman answers it. Oops. My fault. "Sorry, lady".
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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There are really more than that, though. It misses so many, like the webring, etc etc etc
However the arte TV channellinks ot me! So I am famous.
Now does ANYONE understand the traffic rankings?
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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warren c. e. austin
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Likes it here |
Location: Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 247
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"alexa.com", and it's owners, were at one time (versions 6.1 throu 6.2.1) of Netscape associated with AOL/Netscape.
This relationship was severed when it was discovered (and widely reported in 2001 through the Internet Media) that they were violating numerous end-user "privacy" and "security" issues.
They have been since black-listed by the German developers of the Adaware "Spyware" Sniffer-client and others who provide utilities for detection and removal of such appliances.
Warren C. E. Austin
Toronto, Canada
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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Well a button cannot do any harm. Installing their toolbar (or not) is an act one does for one's self.
The company is now Amazon.com owned, but to me its services are amusingly incompetent.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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Itls "so exciting". Actually it isn't. Megaman and I have been looking at it and we have decided it is total and utter crap. After 10 days it gave is a star rating. But the review could have been bilge or even libellous.
We look at the sit stats. The site has the same broad traffic now as it did at the peak on the graph. But the relative ranking "on the day" has slipped down to 40,000 or so. Frankly our rank shoudl even be as HIGH as 40,000.
Warren has interesting misgivings about it, too. Amazon is an amusing corproation to be linked with
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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warren c. e. austin
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Likes it here |
Location: Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 247
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... although interesting to some, would be viewed as being alarmist, by the majority.
I take my "privacy" and the security and integrety of my system seriously; perhaps more seriously than I should at times; especially considering the frankness with which I reveal circumstances about both my life and attitudes, as I have done here and elsewhere.
Unfortunately not all individuals enjoy the luxuray of being as openly "gay" as I do, nor do many want to , even though they may be able to. I have never been otherwise.
I do take issue with application clients, and applets, that intrude on my ability to dictate the "where's", "why's", "what's", "how's" and "if's" of my authorizing the release of information both about me personally, and my habits.
It is for this reason that I use an alternative Browser technology - in this case Netscape 7.x.x - and one that truthfully does not enjoy widepsread favour amongst the majority of Internet end-users; such widespread adoption being the windfall of Microsoft's Internet Explorer some 7-years, or more ago when they integrated Internet Explorer, tying it irrevocably ever after to their Windows Operating System, and thus introducing it to the lions' share of computer users, most of who have not even been aware there are alternatives to it.
With each successive release of the Windows OS, and it's attendant companion modules Internet Explorer, Windows Media Services and Outlook (Express), just to name a couple, Microsoft has seen fit to invade, monitor, and report [through the media of the Internet] your system behaviour, and personal information to a variety of either Microsoft-controlled companies, or affiliated third-party enterprises. Despite Microsoft's claims otherwise, it has been proven conclusively that regardless of the end-user "turning-off" these monitoring and reporting functions, that they do continue, and will ever after continue, to do exactly what Microsoft embedded these routines in the microcode for in the first place.
The sole exception to this rule being the Windows'2000 Operating System, which if the end-user cares to trouble himself to learn, does have the capability to shut them all down; but, it does take work, and constant vigilence to ensure they do not get turned back on.
Windows'XP user's on the other hand, are shit-out-of-luck, with Microsoft having intentionally removed all capability to disarm these functions when they ported Windows'2000, dressing it up in a pretty "new" face, and adding a number of meaningless and irrelevant multimedia tasking capabilities all under the guise of their next generation OS entitled "Windows'XP". This was by design and intent. Microsoft does not want you to be able to interfere with their intrusion of your system. The "dot.net" framework, soon to be imlemented makes this patently clear.
Largely because of Microsoft's success in this arena, an entire industry has developed, either to design and implement further intrusions upon an end-user's privacy and security, or to disinfect systems that have be so invaded.
"alexis.com" is one of these companies.
Netscape 6.x.x/7.x.x users are still capable of adding "Alexis Tool-bar" feature-set and functionality, but it now requires a series of manual entries to be added to a startup file inorder for it to again be added to the ubiqitos Side-bar in the Browser's main window. AOL/Netscape dicontinued their association with alexis.com, as a value-added third-party, because of their concerns over improperly, and unauthorized, collection of user-profile data, not over questions about the Tool-bars effectiveness or features. Whether a Netscape user is willing to risk these intrusions is now at the behest of the user, and not the appication developer, and is as it should be.
I simply pointed out, that all user's should be aware of the history behind "alexis.com" and careful of their use, and of any implied consent they are granting through that use. I would make this same assertion regarding a host of others similar in nature that have been adopted for widespread dissimination throughout the Internet.
Warren C. E. Austin
Toronto, Canada
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Woah.... Deep stuff... That mostly went right over my head... *sigh* 
~Andy
Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?
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A small experiment 
Re: A small experiment 
Re: A small experiment 
