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Over the past several weeks, I have encountered a strange pop-up ad that hijacks Firefox and will not relinquish control unless Firefox is forcibly shut down. Has anyone seen this before? (Click on the image to see a larger version.)

It’s the same ad every time. I’m wondering if this represents a Firefox vulnerability or something more sinister, like malware on my PC.

Update:
Well, it turns out to be malware after all. It seems that ErrorSafe is a reasonably well known piece of scareware. Symantec has generously published instructions on how to remove it. Seems like a pretty tedious process, though. I’m now wondering if it wouldn’t be a better idea to simply back up all of the data my wife and I need and then completely reinstall Windows—or better yet, go back to being a no-Windows household again.

Around this time last year, we bought a new Windows PC, which naturally means that we bought an anti-virus/security package to go along with it; in this case, we decided to go with McAfee. The software itself works well enough, so there is really no reason to complain about it, except for when it periodically requires you to “check in” to make sure that your software is still current. The problem is that, upon logging in, you get presented with a screen that looks exactly like this:

Just this morning, McAfee notified me that our coverage has now expired, so I will have to either log into the Web site and pay for an extension, or buy a new version of the product from my local software vendor. After logging in and being greeted by the cheerful but mostly blank screen above, I’m considering buying new software—but probably not McAfee’s. They just don’t seem to want my business enough to go that extra mile and actually, you know, offer me something to buy. 

I’ve been noticing a lot of news articles about the controversy involved in making mandatory a recently approved vaccine for human papilloma virus (HPV), a sexually transmitted disease linked with cervical cancer. The proposals in favor of mandatory vaccination seem to revolve around the idea of vaccinating pre-adolescent girls. Critics, as I understand it, are claiming that vaccination against this disease may lead to an increase in promiscuity.

As the father of a nearly-pre-adolescent girl, I find it hard to accept the notion that we should keep around a disease that we have the power to prevent—especially one that could cause cancer!—simply so that it can serve as a deterrent against sexual activity. In fact, I find the whole idea fairly repugnant.

I just finished reading Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. The copy I have is now available if anyone reading this blog entry would be interested in reading it. (Offer limited to people living in Japan, or to people I know living in other countries.)

Senator Obama may or may not have what it takes to become the next President of the United States, but reading this book gives you the impression that he’s spent a lot more time thinking about what that job entails than the current occupant of that office. I wish him well in his campaign and expect to see good things from him regardless of the outcome of the 2008 election.

By now, anyone who cares about these things has probably already read Steve Jobs’ ”Thoughts on Music,” an open letter that advocates the abolition of digital rights management (DRM) technologies as currently applied to downloadable music. Among other things, Jobs writes: “This is clearly the best alternative for consumers,” which is undoubtedly true. I’ve never met anyone who has actually liked DRM, but some people put up with it because they feel there is no other choice. I am very much not one of those people.

To me, DRM on music is unacceptable and I have long refused to buy an iPod (or any other type of music player) or download any music simply on principle. That’s how strongly I disagree with the fundamental concept of DRM. For a long time, I assumed that DRM was simply an inevitable trend in the music industry. I wasn’t happy about it, and I certainly wasn’t going to buy into it, but I thought that it would, unfortunately, take root regardless of my resistance to it. But now Steve Jobs seems to have shaken up the assumption that DRM is even necessary, much less inevitable, for which I think he deserves to be applauded.

Following the initial news about Jobs’ letter, there have been a number of additional ones indicating that DRM isn’t very popular with European music company executives, either. I think most people in the music business realize that restricting how music can be played back is not a good way to increase sales, and I am just one of presumably a large number of consumers demonstrating exactly that. I would buy an iPod and start fleshing out my music collection tomorrow if the music labels would drop DRM. And they should, but they won’t, which means I will continue to spend my money on other things until they wise up.