****Site Problems Update****

[David Root]

Still no connection from Google Chrome on my desk CPU. I do get in on Microsoft Edge though.

[Sound Inventments]

I am using Windows 7 and IE 11 and It's working Fine... No warning. Wish I could say the same for Mozilla or Chrome.

[R.G.]

It's worth being clear here: the site works; IE11 works, Chrome works, Firefox works. There's nothing that "doesn't work".

Google noted some malware on the servers that host this site and at least one other back in ... June? May?... and listed the site in its list of warnings for sites it has detected malware on.

We have been assured that the malware was quickly removed and no one was infected, long ago. Further, we are assured that there is no malware presently on the site.

The problem is that Google still lists the site on its malware warnings list. There is a more-or-less simple procedure for getting off that list. I did this personally when my personal site was compromised, and it was removed from the warning list in about 24 hours.

We have been told that there is some reason that the site cannot be removed from Google's warning list, but not the reason.

We've also been told that the site needs to move to a new level of forum software, but that has been made impossible by someone losing the passwords to the site database, and that losing the database would lose the site history or something. It is not clear to me how the database and removal from the Google warning list are related, but they are stated together. Or maybe they are the same in some way that's not clear from here.

So all the various bits work: the site works, and so do Firefox, Chrome, IE, mobile browsing, Safari (?) etc.

But Google still has the site on its warning list. So browsers that look at the warning list to warn you that you're exposed to malware by visiting the site still do whatever they do in response to warnings. None of them "don't work", at least not for this reason. They are in fact working as designed. For instance, my telling Firefox to ignore the warnings on the site persists for the session or day, and I get no further warnings until I restart.

Google has become a popular target, with allegations that it's too big, too dictatorial, whatever. Could be, could not be. What google has done is just to look for malware and publish a list. What the browsers do with the list is their concern. And what users of browsers do with their browsers is their concern too.

Users can turn off their browser warnings, telling the browser to ignore the warning lists. I personally think this is a much bigger exposure, as it gets you to turn off warnings about things that could be much worse if and when they happen. But to each his own.

So nothing is broken. Not the site, not browsers, not google. No one is preventing anyone from browsing. There is a procedure for getting the site off the google warning list. There is some disconnect between the site admins and google in getting that done. It's kind of like the song - there ain't no good guys, there ain't no bad guys, there's only (google and amp garage) and they just disagree.

[M Fowler]

Search function isn't any good anymore unable to get to past posts and of course they are blocked when on google.

[Aaron]

I can't log in on my Mac, which means no more pic posting:(

[xtian]

Why not? Are you using Safari? Just go to Prefs > Security, and disable "Warn when visiting a fradulent website"

[JazzGuitarGimp]

Or if Aaron's idea scares you, you can install Firefox, set its security to disabled, then set the homepage to Amp Garage. That way, when you open Firefox, you are taken directly to Amp Garage, and that reminds you NOT to do any other surfing with Firefox - just open Safari for all other browsing. It's working fine for me with:

Late 2008 Mac Pro
OSX 10.10.3
Firefox 43.0.1

Cheers,
Lou

[sliberty]

I can't log in on my Mac, which means no more pic posting:(

I use Chrome on my Mac.I get a warning screen, I click 2 links ("Details", and "visit the unsafe site"), and I am in. Its annoying, but it is not stopping me from visiting the site.

[RJ Guitars]

Interesting thing happened today... after ignoring the malware warning for most of this past year and accessing the site 100's of times, I got hit with some malware today - when I entered the URL theampgarage.com. It went to a blue screen with a simple telephone number in the center of it and an audible message telling me that I needed to call this number to get the details on how to remove this adware that was just put on my computer.

I shut it down and then ran a virus scan after a restart and it found nothing... I just rebuilt this computer a couple weeks back and I have a full backup of my files so I decided to see what happens if I give a go a 2nd time. I came in without even getting the malware warning. I'm not sure what that all means but maybe it will help somebody sort this out.

[xtian]

"theampgarage.com" is NOT the same as our TAG site, "ampgarage.com"

Don't make that mistake again!

[RJ Guitars]

Ah ha! Thanks Aaron, That makes for some interesting exploring. Apparently theampgarage.com is being user in some clever marketing abuse of the unsuspecting web public. In going back to that site, each visit I am randomly sent to some online advertisement. Funny thing is that one of those was a Google services site... Sorta has the feel of conflict of interest?

Sadly enough, this aparantly dues not offer any help for solving the TAG malware warning.

[sliberty]

Wow. I entered theampgarage.com just to see, and I got a red screen that did look a little different, and it appeared to be Comcast (my ISP) that was warning me about the deceptive site ahead. I didn't click through.

What is that site? Just a malware haven?

[R.G.]

What you found is just another variety of the way that ignoring malware warnings can get you mousetrapped.

I do not know if this is how it happened, but it's entirely possible and plausible that some social engineerish mal-guy noted that ampgarage.com has a malware warning all the time and guessed that some people might just ignore it and click through. His malware site really is malware, and has an intentionally confusing name, so some people will click through the warning and get infected.

It's one way that users here having been trained to ignore malware warnings can get infected, and it does not even require this site to be infected to do it.

Sadly, this site has been on the warning list for - what, seven months now? - so it is likely that the condition is permanent. It's not very likely that getting THIS amp garage off the warning list will ever happen.

For whatever reasons, the site has limped along in its current state, proving that it *can* limp along. So it's unlikely that the warning will get removed. Maybe as a happy side effect of something else, but the warnings are not enough of a motivation to fix the root cause.

[rp]

Instead of getting better sounds like it's going from bad to worse. Maybe we should be preparing a lock-out/post disaster/apocalypse meet-up strategy where we all show up as a flood of refugees on the Hoffman forum while we re-group and look to build a new home

Why can't TAG reboot as new forum with an obviously associated name?

synonyms: car port, lock-up, depot, terminus, terminal, base, headquarters

Lock-up is right out for obvious reasons, headquarters is too martial, base too sci-fi, terminus too resolute or final, like a place you go to die, so for me it's btwn depot and carport. As a life-long east coaster I always wished I could have a car-port so I vote for <ampcarport.com>

seriously, supposedly the database is clean, why can't this place just get rebooted as ampgarage2.com and port everything over? I know nothing of these web things, maybe it's very difficult, but just throwing it out there.

[R.G.]

The problem is that whomever possesses the ability (in terms of passwords and such) has to have the motivation and time to solve the problems involved.

That has not happened in seven months. Each day that goes by makes it less likely that it ever will, for reasons that I 'splained a couple of posts back.

The site is what it is.
- The site works.
- It's listed as an attack site on a warning list.
- There is a way to get off that list that is not being done for some unclear reasons, possibly having to do with forum software updates and/or permissions to some database being lost.
- The warnings are annoying and mildly dangerous in a side-effect way to the users, but they do not cause the site to be unusable.
- Give that and standard human nature, the longer it exists as "annoying, but working", the longer it will stay that way.