Is ADSADCLIENT31.dll a Virus?

[authenticate]

I have been running Mozilla 1.2.1 for a week and use hotmail. Starting today each time I access hotmail (hom/inbox/refresh or reload a page) I get a pop-up asking me how I want to handle a file that the web page wants to download. The file is called ADSAdClient31.dll. I can choose cancel or hit escape to ignore it. When I do this there seems to be one less advert on the hotmail page (hurrah!). But why is this happening? It is very annoying and inconvenient. I tried choosing the suggested option of opening the file with mozilla and it opens up another window which is blank but then another pop-up is displayed asking the same question.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Just seems to be a spyware advertisement system. There's no reason to be loading a DLL file in order to see ads on a webpage, and it's irritating that Microsoft would allow that sort of thing to be used, since a lot of non-technical people will just click yes, thinking Microsoft wants to install it and that it's necessary for Hotmail to work.

You can possibly block that server out in order to avoid receiving the message from it. Look at the HTML source and see if you can find the code that causes the attempt to install the file, or points to the ad server that sends it or something like that. If it's on a server that sounds like an ad server, you can use your HOSTS file (search Google to find out how to use it) to point it to 127.0.0.1, which will prevent your system from being able to see that server.

 

[authenticate]

Thanks for the reply. Before trying out your suggestion I thought I would refresh the hotmail page and the problem has gone away. They must have found and removed the problem. Thanks again.

 

[copyfixer]

I posted the same question. This is the link someone gave me.


http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.p...2b38a94&act=ST&f=32&t=60169&st=0&#entry608340


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