investigation about spyware

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virgo
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Sep 08, 2024 8:06 pm

investigation about spyware

Post by virgo »

Hi guys, I'm investigating because I'm pretty sure I have a spyware somewhere. To be honest I don't know where exactly it is for this reason I'm investigating.
There is a weird thing about NoScript on Firefox 128 on OpenBSD. The problem is that I'm not able to block ggpht.com domain.
If I watch some videos on yt I see the ads because I don't have any adblock installed. If I open devtools I see that the ads come from yt3.ggpht.com so I tried to block it (no trusted) adding ggpht.com to the blocked domains in the options. But it does not work... I mean if I open the devtools the ads persist and FF continue to download ads from that domain. I tried to ad yt3.ggpht.com to the blocked domain but nothing was changed.
Then my question is:
is that behaviour strange or it's absolutely normal and there is something that I didn't understand ?

Here are two shots
https://imgur.com/a/5H2PgKY
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:128.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/128.0
barbaz
Senior Member
Posts: 10921
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2013 5:45 pm

Re: investigation about spyware

Post by barbaz »

It's normal to see requests to ggpht.com when browsing Youtube, and it's expected for it not to show up in NoScript because Youtube doesn't load any active content from ggpht.com, it's only images.

NoScript is not an ad blocker, it's not the right tool for this job. Any ad blocking NoScript happens to do is only a side effect.

Seeing ads on Youtube when not using any adblocker is not an indicator of "spyware" or even anything wrong at all.
*Always* check the changelogs BEFORE updating that important software!
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:130.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/130.0
virgo
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Sep 08, 2024 8:06 pm

Re: investigation about spyware

Post by virgo »

ok, so maybe I don't fully understand how noscript works. I thought noscript blocked everything from a certain domain. Now I understand that it only blocks javascript. Is that correct?

I didn't say that advertising is an indicator of spyware. There have been many data leaks related to my private life and I'm investigating to see if I see any anomalies.
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:128.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/128.0
barbaz
Senior Member
Posts: 10921
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2013 5:45 pm

Re: investigation about spyware

Post by barbaz »

virgo wrote: Sun Sep 08, 2024 9:13 pm I thought noscript blocked everything from a certain domain. Now I understand that it only blocks javascript. Is that correct?
While NoScript indeed does not block everything, it's more than just Javascript: NoScript is a security tool, with its main feature being blocking active content. For an overview of what NoScript can block, see viewtopic.php?t=26285 and https://noscript.net/usage/#crosssite-protections
*Always* check the changelogs BEFORE updating that important software!
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:130.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/130.0
virgo
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Sep 08, 2024 8:06 pm

Re: investigation about spyware

Post by virgo »

Thanks
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:128.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/128.0
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