I’ve gotten a few complaints this week from some overly paranoid people that say they can’t see WUWT anymore in Firefox, but can in Safari. The problem seems to be related solely to a browser extension called “ghostery” which is somehow flagging Adobe Typekit (used to provide custom fonts on WordPress) as some sort of malware.
I suspect this happened all of the sudden due to some sort of “upgrade” that was automatically installed for Ghostery.
Adobe Typekit is used by thousands upon thousands of websites, it is completely safe. Just look at the list of major websites in the lower right that use it:
Source: https://www.ghostery.com/en/apps/typekit_by_adobe
Personally, I think the Ghostery browser extension is a complete waste of time, as what it does is handled by other malware and AV programs installed in your computer, but some people insist on using it anyway and bizarrely demand that I change WUWT to accommodate them. Well folks, tough noogies, I can’t, I don’t have any control whatsoever over such things.
However, the end user does, and here is the simple solution to the problem:
Problem:
Ghostery browser extension is blocking Typekit
Solution:
Go to Options > Blocking Options > Trackers > Widgets and uncheck “Typekit by Adobe”.
Source: http://help.typekit.com/customer/portal/articles/807568-troubleshooting-guide-using-web-fonts
If you don’t want to perform this simple task, then there’s no other solution except to uninstall Ghostery.
Thanks for visiting WUWT – Anthony Watts
Anthony,
Well done. Correct approach.
Oddly, I have had no problem although Ghostery has blocked typekit for a long, long time. Go figure.
I have typekit in my firewall as a block and the only consequence is the WUWT page loads faster and the typeface I get is smaller. Noogies like that I’m happy with.
I use Firefox with all updates installed with no problems on WUWT or any other site. Thanks Anthony I will steer clear of it if asked to download it.
As a further note, Ghostery does not flag malware per se, it allows you to disallow tracking stuff, beacons, and what not.
Font are very seductive tracking beacons. Honest people who would never consider installing a tracking beacon have no qualms about using served fonts, and there’s no difference between them. There is a lot of ignorance out there regarding data mining.
Thank you for the fast update, Anthony. I thought Ghostery was blocking something for your site but I wasn’t sure what. At least I now know what to unblock. WUWT is way to essential reading to miss.
BTW, what’s a noogie when its at home? I don’t think we have them this side of the pond.
Try Numpty
I thought a boogie was a bogie
Sly
Depends on your background. A “bogie” (also “bogey”) is a military term for a “marker” or counter on an “unknown contact” (usually for air-to-air dogfights or radar reports of unknown airplanes coming in towards the ships in WWII). Culturally, the term loosely came from the “boogy man” of little children’s nightmare stories about unknown attackers in the dark. Others have claimed “boggy man” as a creature lurching up from the swamps to terrorize people zombie-style, with or without the Haitian “living dead” zombie legend tie-ins.
Then, once the radar people started using it for “unknown possibly deadly contacts in the dark” the spelling twisted and turned.
*noogie = bogey
Hey if a bogey is an object that is unidentifiable? Thanks now I can shoot pars everytime I get a bogey. Hey I didn’t see that bogey 😀
When you give some one a noogie you are rubbing the top of their head very roughly with knuckles while holding them in a headlock.
with your knuckles…… sorry, missed by that much.
Yes, as my younger brother and son will attest to.
Odd, very odd. I have this Realsciency extension in Firefox, and it doesn’t allow me to visit RealClimate.
How do I keep it that way ? 😀
RC and SS are blocked at our gateway firewall as a political websites. WUWT is not 🙂
No problem here using ghostery and seeing WUWT. I think people need to select ghostery preferences with more care. One can select which trackers ghostery will flag.
I’ve seen some unusual changes in font, using Chrome, but still visible.
by default ghostery blocks nothing. just shows you whats there and gives you the option to block in future (or unblock)
using Firefox now – no problems – but nytimes uses the typekit?
hey – 222,238,099 views and growing
I have no problems but Adobe is terrible. Upgrading with non-chrome browsers is difficult at times.
Adobe can take 5% of the blame. So many frequent and buggered upgrades…. sloppy programming.
There’s a new browser based on the Chrome engine called Slimjet. It’s actually kind of nice. I’m still using Chrome, but I’m planning on moving to Slimjet when I get a round tuit. Slimjet is still kinda beta-ish, but it seems to be pretty stable now.
There is a cut down version of Firefox called Pale Moon, fast and professional
I dislike Adobe’s cloud but then I dislike all gatekeeper clouds. It is lock-in technology that satisfies the “never let them out of your site” mantra that has reached a fine art with social media. Want to follow an external link at Facebook? They warn you a mistake has happened seemingly from the perspective that you can’t possibly wish to see a non-Facebook site. I do agree though that unlocking the Adobe service from Ghostery is a trivial operation and one that is entirely necessary when using any ad-blocker. There are some advert sites that I won’t unblock and I’m not alone. As such there are consequences to being a content provider and for being a site visitor and sometimes philosophies collide. We can’t always get what we want.
All that said, Google’s free font server is easier to implement, is open, so far, not blocked by anyone, and very likely not compatible with your requirements, or possibly those of WordPress, Inc. I don’t use them, either, though, because I like Google less than I like Adobe.
“I like google less than adobe” coffee stream!
issue is typekit is a well known and utilized vector so the amount of sites that use it means nothing.
telling the users that a particular extension is causing the issue was a good thing to do, users can then make the choice with correct data.
I personally have not seen the issue but do thank you for posting the findings…now can the people with the issue see the post ?? LOL 🙂
Well, not really, though I don’t know what malware program people have installed.
Typekit as do number of other 3rd party services are able to collect information on who reads what and when in the internet. While I do think it is impossible to retain privacy in the internet for a number of reasons, it makes sense that some people want more of it.
Now, you can safely say there is nothing special in Typekit, and the problem is probably more of Ghostery being unable to teach its users what this case is about. However, you can’t blame the people for using Ghostery or having the opinion on necessity of Typekit. Personally I think the internet is a dream tool for marketers to collect information the users of it never intended to share.
Damn!!! I hate tough noogies!!
Add a splash of balsamic vinegar and marinate overnight. Works wonders.
tough noogies ? The common expression over here in Oz is and was “popularised” by Ma Anand Sheela and broadcast also by CBS in 1985:
The expression was common when I was in school in the late fifties / early sixties, and probably long before that. (or at leeast from WWII) What makes it ‘special’, is that it was used on TV.
When I have no issue with being tracked, I use my own laptop.
When visiting sites where I do not wish to be tracked, or may have malware, I simply use my wife’s laptop when she’s away .
Nice.
I hope you use ‘Incognito mode’! If not, your wife could (if motivated sufficiently) look at those photos, too.
ghostery doesn’t flag anything as a ‘problem’, it just flags them
Mr. Watts
I had problems, intermittently, being able to move down your blog page during the past 2 weeks, using Firefox. The browser would just drop out, even though I did not have Ghostery installed on the browser. I had to drop back to using an old version of Opera, with Ghostery installed at times to read your site.
In my opinion, some of the problem was due to a malformed item of content rather than a problem with Ghostery. The problem would clear after a couple of days, which would seem to indicate some other problem, rather than Ghostery.
that easily could be ad server issues (2 browsers handle the js differently) which would be out of his control.
its [good] to have another browser to [use] at times though isn’t it.
[Wasn’t that an old country song, “It’s Goog to be a Use Named “Sue” ? …. .mod]
shoot typos
goog=good and sue=use
LOL thanks for fixing that Mod 🙂
now I got that boy named sue song in my head LOL
Not a big deal, took all of 20 seconds to identify, verify and allow as exception.
When I need to use Chrome(rarely use it though) I use Ghostery, but on Firefox I use NoScript and AdBlock Plus. I’ve always found Ghostery to be not among the most intuitive script blockers.
You can as Anthony notes simply disable the Typekit blocker in Ghostery. You can also allow it on a per-site basis.
“tough noogies”.
It’s your website Mr. Watts so you call the shots (I would have put it less politely myself), Please don’t lose sleep over people being too lazy to RTFM, as we say it IT.
It’s an ID10T error, or maybe a PEBKAC issue.
PIBKAC. Problem Is Between Keyboard And Chair.
Or I suppose PEBKAC, Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair
The bad news is Big Brother Is Watching Us. The good news is that he only wants to sell us stuff. But he is Big.
The good news is that he only wants to sell us stuff.
Unfortunately, once the information has been compiled and indexed, accessing it for more nefarious purposes becomes easy to do. It is only a matter of time until someone does.
The big brother exists because his customers expect to make money from data mining. They do and that is why he is big.
I had a problem with Adobe Acrobat a few months ago. I upgraded to the latest version with no problem until I rebooted the computer. Every single shortcut item on the screen and Start menu had been replaced with the Adobe Icon. Un-installing and re-installing produced the same result, so I now use another .pdf viewer.
I use Sumatra pdf viewer. Not as fancy as Adobe, but much trimmer. When looking at downloading Adobe pdf viewer, I was shocked and turned off by its size.
Or you could have simply fixed the issue:
https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/application-file-icons-change-acrobat.html
As long as we’re into tech stuff here…..
My sister has given me her Facebook password so I can access her page.
About 1/2 the time when scrolling thru her page I get a freeze-up that says “internet explorer has stopped working”
It also happens on another site (lately) that is mostly just supplying data re: horse racing (Equibase).
Is it all those live ads in the sidebar, or live videos on FB, that are crashing IE ???
I get the same thing, and it is very annoying. I have followed the MS (un)help sites to try to “fix” this but nothing has worked so far. I refuse to use another browser especially accessing sites like eBay who state on their site they support M$ IE. I just put up with the IE brownouts and crashes. It’s easy enough to bin “iexplorer” process via task manager and start IE again!
1. What operating system are your using?
2. What version of Internet Explorer are you using?
Seeing as you asked, Windows 7 Home Edition x64 and IE 11, not that it matters anyway. The work-around works. I am more of a windows server, SCCM and SCOM man.
Patrick, my question was for u.k.
LOL Well, you could have DIRECTED that to the appropriate postie simply by doing this;
“u.k.(us)
February 28, 2015 at 9:54 am”
Blah blah blah…
C’mon it’s not difficult!
Anyway for both of you.
1. Run Microsoft Safety Scanner and remove everything it finds: http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx
2. Run Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware and remove everything it finds: http://www.malwarebytes.org/mwb-download/confirm/
3. Reset Internet Explorer:
(a) Close all Internet Explorer and Explorer windows that are currently open.
(b) Start Internet Explorer. * Note If you are running Windows 8.1 or Windows 8, start Internet Explorer from the desktop. Changing your settings will affect both Internet Explorer and Internet Explorer that you start from the desktop.
(c) On the Tools menu, tap or click Internet options. If you don’t see the Tools menu, press Alt.
(d) In the Internet Options window, tap or click the Advanced tab.
(e) Tap or click Reset.
I know how to “clean” a windows machine. The real problem is that most of these “tools” are, in effect, futile! This is stuff that, anyone who has been in the “windows” space, knows.
And as most corporates, eventually, by-passed Vista, for good reason (It was carp), most corporates now are by-passing Windows 8 and 8.1 (Because they are equally carp too) for Windows 10, which needs (In the corporate distributed space for remote management etc) at least Windows server 2012, SCCM 2012, SCOM 2012 etc etc etc etc etc…
You are the one having problems with IE so I would argue that maybe you do not know how to clean a windows machine properly. There are no legitimate causes of getting an error message such as, “internet explorer has stopped working” with IE, except on malware infected PCs, PCs with unofficial copies of Windows, PCs with defective hardware or overclocked hardware or PCs that have had worthless utilities (such as tweaking tools) run on them that broke IE in some way.
Please explain how they are “futile” as anyone that really knows what they are doing would not make any such argument.
All of Vista’s legitimate technical issues were dealt with via service packs, the rest were ideological arguments. Windows 8 technically is sound and more secure than Windows 7 but their metro/modern UI interface was lauded for being largely inefficient for desktop users (I agreed with this argument) and this is largely being addressed in Windows 10.
Corporations chose not to upgrade to Vista or Windows 8 because XP was supported until 2014 and Windows 7 until 2020 so financially there was no incentive to adopt either. Most corporate IT departments (I work in one) take conservative upgrade approaches and wait until certain baselines have been reached, with Window’s operating systems this is usually Service Pack 1.
I dont’ see how someone is “overly paranoid” because they are having this problem. Ghostery (which I don’t use – Blur here) is in no way the equivalent of a malware/virus scanner.
It’s kind of equivalent to being called a climate denier. Security is very important on the internet and some of us take it quite seriously. There are no benign tracking products and some of them are very cleverly disguised. For those who don’t believe it, well, tough noogies, eh. 🙂
This is not a security issue but a privacy debate – those are two very different things.
Privacy is “people can’t learn stuff about me”.
A security property is a “this thing can’t happen” property.
So a privacy property is a security property.
Security is not just about not just about viruses and back orifice and RATS and Stuxnet and stuff. When your computer leaks any information to a third party when design says this information shouldn’t leak, it’s a security issue.
simple-touriste, please stop misinforming people about computer security and learn how to read the licensing and legal agreements you click “agree” to but fail to read. There is no malicious activity going on here and no one’s computer security is being violated.
In the IT security world we have an expression: Good luck favors the paranoid.