[joaney]

covertLinks.com claims it protects affiliates "against Link Hijackers, Link Bypassers, and most importantly, Parasite Software".

I'd like to try it, if it's real. If not, could someone recommend an effective product that requires absolutely NO programming?

thanks.

[Donuts]

These folks don't understand parasites.
Don't bother with this junk.

[Rollerblader]

The only way to protect yourself from parasites and parasitic cookie overwrites is to only promote programs which do not have them and boot them out when they find them....even then, there are still things that could happen like coupon scraping which you can only be protected from if you have coupons which are specifically for your site and when a sale is made it only credits you because your coupon showed in the coupon section.

You can loose sales from companies that help the merchant with shopping cart abandonment and then the company overwrites the cookie so they can get paid when they bring the sale back to the shopping cart, etc....

But for software parasites, the only safe thing to do is only promote programs that do not allow them to participate.

[gwasserman]

doesnt seem worth it... it might catch something but scammers always find ways to work around this stuff.

[joaney]

thanks for all the replies.

does anyone have any opinions on goldencan or squidoo-type sites and parasites?

since amazon sales go thru their links, i was wondering if their specially-programmed links might impede thieves stealing commissions, or do they lose money to theftware as well.

[Donuts]

there's nothing different about goldencan or squidoo or amazon's links either.

there's no technical secret coding that will stop parasitic adware from writing an illegitimate cookie after you have written an actual-traffic-was-referred cookie.

here's my recommended plan for you:

1) work with clean programs and networks.
2) learn about afsrc=1 link tagging, test it and see if it helps you.
3) share test purchase results with your peers here at ABW.
4) stop looking for the magic bullet cure for parasites, there isn't one, that's why it's been a problem for so long.
5) continue to educate yourself about how these things work.

Have fun!

[2busy]

What about the scripts to identify user agents and then redirect or pop a message? I understand that they would probably scare the visitor away, but if they're bringing Zango onto my sites I'd just as soon they went away anyway. I'm not using anything like this, but it is tempting.
When people place orders from my business and I see the numbers of them with BHO's it is not surprising that it takes so many clicks to finally get a commission. When I send their order confirmation emails I add a note and a link to MS Windows Defender and have only received positive feedback about that.