wierd blue double underlined words

[cmichb]

all over CS, i have been seeing blue, double underlined words that r clickable, when u hover over them with ur mouse, some wierd thing pops up. its been on the forum, on the trades page, in posts, sometimes on the home page, and sometimes on the my pets page-even where it says 'friends' above ur friends list. i'm really worried that there is something up with my family's computers (i use my grammas computer and ma moms X3). if u r having the same thing happen to u, can u please tell me here so that i dont think that its just me? tess, nick, if u can do anything to help, that will be greatly appreciated. thanx. :3

[Twisted Illusions]

Could you describe the 'weird thing' that pops up more? It isn't a kind of link, is it?

[Kat.]

Does it look like this - http://dragcave.net/view/k1ZlN

[My.Immortal]

Like this?
Everybody can see them, don't worry!

[zzz]

By any chance are they, when you hover over them, ads for a site called Play Pickle?
Because I get that too, and I still don't know what it is. >->

[cmichb]

Like this?
Everybody can see them, don't worry!

no, no! its advertisement, like, when u hover over it, some advertisement thing pops up. its really wierd. i dont know how to describe it. anybody else having same thing?

[cmichb]

Does it look like this - http://dragcave.net/view/k1ZlN

no.

[Atwood]

I've never seen that on CS, though I have seen it on a couple of other sites - it's an advertising thing that picks out keywords and attaches related ads to those words in the forum/blog post, so when you pass your mouse over it the ad pops up for a few seconds. An adblocker might help against that, but I'm not sure. There's nothing really different between CS and the other sites I have seen it on (except the other sites are commercial ones, so I figured it was just their version of paid advertising), so I don't know why it would show up in one place but not the other.

[Nick]

If you're seeing that on CS, your computer is infected with spyware, or some spyware pretending to be a useful toolbar, which is modifying the webpage and inserting those.

If you don't already have an antivirus/antispyware product, check out Microsoft Security Essentials, it's free:

http://windows.microsoft.com/mse/

EDIT: It sounds like you might have downloaded the "play pickle" software, which is essentially spyware. Here's someone who had that same problem: http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/845251

[cmichb]

If you're seeing that on CS, your computer is infected with spyware, or some spyware pretending to be a useful toolbar, which is modifying the webpage and inserting those.

If you don't already have an antivirus/antispyware product, check out Microsoft Security Essentials, it's free:

http://windows.microsoft.com/mse/

EDIT: It sounds like you might have downloaded the "play pickle" software, which is essentially spyware. Here's someone who had that same problem: http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/845251

oh, really? thats not good...