Friday, September 1, 2023

A New Download Problem?

I just got this public comment from someone who downloaded the Aerosmith album I posted yesterday:

"Paul, I just tried to download the Aerosmith file, and apparently got an exe. malware file instead. Fortunately, my anti-virus software eliminated it, but you may want to reconsider doing business with this particular vendor."

A couple of people said something similar about the Cars album I posted recently as well. I have no idea what the hell is going on, but please beware of this problem. If anyone can tell me if you're having problems or not, and what may be causing it, please let me know. I tried downloading the files in question but I didn't see any problems.

If I have to replace the download links yet again, I'll be really upset. I have been using two services lately, imagenetz and upload.ee. But imagenetz has a problem: many of the links mysteriously die, even though they're not supposed to. Just a few days ago, I replaced about 100 dead imagenetz links with upload.ee ones. I'm only still using imagenetz for zip files over 200 MB, since upload.ee doesn't allow anything over that size. This new malware problem is with the imagenetz links. Sigh!

By the way, please never, ever run .exe files that you aren't totally sure about. That can give your computer nasty viruses.

18 comments:

  1. So I just tried the Aerosmith file just to see what happens (I'm not an Aerosmith fan). I got a new screen asking me to run a "setup.exe" file. There is *no way* I am running a setup file from a download site. I've downloaded your files previously from this same site and never encountered this previously. Something is indeed fishy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. P.S. The last files I downloaded were the Robbie Robertson files, with no problem. So something has apparently changed at this site since then.

      Delete
  2. Using Firefox on Android to download The Cars, I got a full page pop up ad with a prompt to install a phony VPN app. Using Firefox on Windows 11 with the Adblock plus extension I didn't get any popup.

    Looks like the rest of us need to accept choosing our web browsers carefully and using good popup blockers as the price for all the free music we get to download. Personally I'm okay with that. Thanks for all your generosity and effort to make this great stuff available.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the info. I use Adblock too, so I can't see the problem. Everyone should use something like that, in my opinion.

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    2. Hey Paul, I tried the Aerosmith and Cars just now with Chrome and then Edge and both times i got pop ups with setup.exe. I toggled back and forth with back and forward arrows from one screen to the other. Thought I got them both to download. But when I checked instead of atse. zip they were exe files but with Aerosmith and Cars headings. Something is amiss with these two titles. Honeybus and Joni downloaded fine.

      Delete
  3. I've had no problems. I'm on a Mac using Jdownloader 2

    ReplyDelete
  4. I downloaded both files in question & both were virus scanned & no issues. I have lots of pre-cautions for this kind of thing, anyway, they were fine & no pop ups. Then deleted um, test complete.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Paul buddy you might wanna consider using this service instead/along side Imagenetz & Upload. it's called https://pixeldrain.com. don't know/remember if anyone recommended it on the those threads you've posted a while back when the main file problem occurred but from what i'm seeing it's sure is stable. NOT SURE about policies and such. worth checking out.

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  6. Hi, just sharing my opinions, I downloaded and unpacked both folders (Aerosmith and The Cars) without any problems, using Windows 11, Firefox and a pretty standrad free ad blocker. So for me there's no problem. I haven't tried listening to either concert yet, but in the explorer all files look like pretty harmless .mp3 files.

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  7. I got the Cars.exe file as well, but knew it was bogus, so deleted it and reloaded and got the legit Cars file.

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  8. Ditto to Jeff above. Never had any issues before. Same issue with Aerosmith. By the way, thanks for both.

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  9. Double-checked to make sure my AdBlock was active. Using Chrome on Win10. I got the download and save screen with the Joni Mitchell title, but the file was an .exe file! Not what you intended.

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  10. Yup, I had to try the link several times to get the zip folder for download, instead of an exe file. That worked for me. In my experience in the past there were several download sites that I had to be careful with. I hadn't had trouble with yours before. Seems like there are lot's of jerks out there that just want to start trouble.

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  11. Paul, hello. I'm seeing a similar issue when downloading the latest Joni concert, ended up only with JoniMchl-1995-GneAutryWestrnHeritgeMseumLsAnge_876683.exe with Firefox & Chrome. More attempts result in "The connection was reset". I have Avast installed and that provides a "Avast secure browser" and all downloads are successful with that. Seems that browser is available for free on the Avast website. Just a thought?

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  12. I see here that people that use Mac (Such as myself) have no issue whats so ever. those who uses PC Windows seems to have them for some reason. for Mac users it's a regular Zip download. correct me if i'm wrong.....

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  13. Downloaded successfully through JDownloader 2.

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  14. Upload.ee now pops up several unwanted screens tryig to get you to download suspicious files. If you keep clicking on the original link, it will eventually give you the correct zip file, and you can just delete the unwanted windows. Imagenetz.de seems ok.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I have encountered the same issue with files hosted from upload.ee this site opens additional tabs and one of the sites that launches seems to download a file with the same name as the zip but with an .exe extension which is getting detected as a malware. I sometimes have to close the additional tabs multiple times before I get a download of the real zip file listed. any .exe downloads should immediately be deleted.

    ReplyDelete