"Access denied"?

[David_R]

I have never had any trouble signing in here at FT from my home desktop or my work laptop (these locations are in different states). But when I suggested to a friend who has a new implant that he join FT, he told me that when he tried to enter, he received an error message that said "access denied" because it was a "suspicious site."

I thought this was probably something strange about his computer or his connection, that is until yesterday when I tried to sign in from a hotel, where I got the "access denied" because it was a "suspicious site" error message.

What's going on? I thought that maybe it was because of the subject matter, but there are acceptable sites (I would think) with similar educational non-pornographic content. Any ideas?

[dg_moore]

I wonder who the IP is. It could be their attempt at "protecting" users. I've logged in to FT from many different locations over the years and have never run into an "unsafe site" warning.

[alibaba]

Likely an issue with the security license not being up to date, unfamiliar web site, filtering software, or security software not being familiar with the site. I run into this every few months with several sites. Sometimes using a different browser software, example google instead of firefox or a change like that gets past the issue. This also often happens when security software updates but does not have the completed compatibility software package yet to accommodate a certain browser. Norton and Firefox have this conflict sometimes, then upon next update it usually will be resolved. Some hotel's free wifi limits browsing besides speed and purchasing their premium wifi allows you access to anything.

[Larry10625]

Likely an issue with the security license not being up to date, unfamiliar web site, filtering software, or security software not being familiar with the site. I run into this every few months with several sites. Sometimes using a different browser software, example google instead of firefox or a change like that gets past the issue. This also often happens when security software updates but does not have the completed compatibility software package yet to accommodate a certain browser. Norton and Firefox have this conflict sometimes, then upon next update it usually will be resolved. Some hotel's free wifi limits browsing besides speed and purchasing their premium wifi allows you access to anything.

Alibaba; I was thinking almost the same thing. I wonder if the users have their personal security levels set too high. In a hotel they might be worried about porn sites or viruses

Larry

[Lester33]

Agree with both of you. I have been working on ransomware here for some time.
Software and browsers trying to keep it off hit everything. Personally never had a problem here PC or phone yet.

[alibaba]

I think with the hotels it is a cheap way to reduce costs. Prevent use or slow use so they have to pay for less bandwidth or as an option you can buy their package that I find gives fast speed and access where you want to go. Same as the 25 watt light bulbs so you cannot see to cross the room. Firefox updates often do not have compatibility software built in for some antivirus programs in their initial updates too. Sometimes a day to 2 weeks later they will have another update that adds these in. In most cases I have no issue and I have 4 anti virus/malware programs stacked on all my computers running simultaneously. Most companies say it cannot be done nor will the programs be able to function but I call bullshit because I have done it for years. Amazing how some of the top names in internet security can let a virus get through but with the stacked programs, one will catch it where the others don't .

[Larry10625]

I think with the hotels it is a cheap way to reduce costs. Prevent use or slow use so they have to pay for less bandwidth or as an option you can buy their package that I find gives fast speed and access where you want to go. Same as the 25 watt light bulbs so you cannot see to cross the room. Firefox updates often do not have compatibility software built in for some antivirus programs in their initial updates too. Sometimes a day to 2 weeks later they will have another update that adds these in. In most cases I have no issue and I have 4 anti virus/malware programs stacked on all my computers running simultaneously. Most companies say it cannot be done nor will the programs be able to function but I call bullshit because I have done it for years. Amazing how some of the top names in internet security can let a virus get through but with the stacked programs, one will catch it where the others don't .

I have been told many times, by several different stores that if you have more than one virus programme installed, they will fight with each other. Each one will consider the other a virus

[alibaba]

If you use McAfee, a program I loathe and consider one of the poorest anti virus in mass distribution, it will conflict with everything. Bottom line from working on friends computers, if Best Buy recommends it for an anti virus, it is crap and a revenue generator for repeat business to fix your infected computer. I use Norton 360 and the windows firewall as my base resident programs then concurrently run Malware Bytes Pro and Spybot Search and Destroy. Malware Bytes and Spybot have several times caught and removed programs that got through Windows Defender and Norton. There will literally be pages of especially Malware that gets through most of the name brand antivirus'. Back when we used McFee and I forget the other one, we had virus issues all the time. Now when friends have computer issues I install Malware Bytes, Spybot to clean up the biggest part, then install the Norton. I also run Adware Plus. I NEVER shut off any of these programs and every scan is always clean which I manually do on a regular basis to read what has attempted to get into the computers. Spybot updates you often have to run "immunize" 2 times for updates to fully install. The program also has to be opened with a right click to be run as administrator to get the full update install. Too often people miss those steps.