
Helpsmith landing page tries to download 18 MB .exe to your comp - ripberge
http://www.helpsmith.com/quickinfo.php?gclid=CKGpzOGD1rUCFW3ZQgodGEEAjQ
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shanelja
Except that helpsmith.com would surely be the landing page? It might be
against most online protocols to instigate a download, but to be fair to them,
that's the download page for helpsmith.

In any case, I don't appreciate it, if I was on my wireless dongle, that would
have been expensive data loss for me, might be worth shooting them an email to
let them know.

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cnvogel
It seems to be the download of their product (same URL as referred to on the
download button, but as a <meta> refresh, 5 seconds). Highly unusual to
trigger the download immediately, but at first glance seems to be innocuous.

[https://www.virustotal.com/en/url/62ffa4af2b77fb35edfcce944a...](https://www.virustotal.com/en/url/62ffa4af2b77fb35edfcce944a9a81a52f2ca9ac6e4cf0baf6a93f7a71aa9687/analysis/)

(click on downloaded file analysis, two hits are refering to a generic
executable compression “PAK_GENERIC.009”)

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lutusp
Given the headline and the warning, why in the world would you link to the
offending site?

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ripberge
Update: A little clarification. I got to this page by clicking on a Google
Adwords ad for Helpsmith. The crazy thing is--when using Chrome I was not even
prompted about whether or not I wanted to download--it just started saving to
disk. When using IE or Firefox I _was_ prompted and was able to decline.

I'm sure this file is indeed innocuous. However, it seems like a pretty
slimeball move on their part.

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lutusp
> The crazy thing is--when using Chrome I was not even prompted about whether
> or not I wanted to download--it just started saving to disk.

So change your security settings. With default settings, Chrome always prompts
for authorization before downloading an executable.

But I agree this is incredibly sleazy behavior on their part.

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jbrooksuk
Wow, that's crazy, I didn't even have to accept the download, it must think I
instated it as if I pressed Save on it. Bad, bad, bad practise.

