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WARNING!
Parents: Please Read and Take Note!
Your Kids could be led to a porn site!
This warning is about things over which
NO webmaster has ANY control!
At Kids Freeware we
do our best to make your time on our web site enjoyable. Everything we
list and link to is chosen and researched carefully including the advertising
that we run. We never forget that our site is viewed by children.
Having said that, accidents do happen, a website changes its focus and
offers inappropriate material, links are redirected to inappropriate sites.
We have control over this, as soon as we become aware of these problems we remove the link/s!
There is a new technology that allows "keywords"
on any web page to become advertising links. It works through a browser or browser plug-in on
your computer! You may have already noticed single words on web pages highlighted in yellow or green
and mousing over these words produces a drop down box with links in it. These links are NOT put there,
nor are they controlled in any way, by the website owner! They do NOT lead to any content or site that
the website you are viewing endorses! In fact they can often take over a site's own link to the next content
page.
Advertisers are buying these "keywords" from unethical companies who then cause a link to appear whenever
the word is found on any web page! To give you an example, you could be reading a description for a
mortgage calculator program, the word "mortgage" would be highlighted and would show links to websites offering
mortgage financing. That one could even be useful. But... what if you were reading KidsFreeware guestbook and
someone had written "I love this site". If the word "love" was highlighted the links from it would most likely go
to a porn site or a casino!
None of us have any control over where these links lead you.
We are not being paid for this, until very recently many of us were not even aware that it was happening.
There is only one way to stop this happening. You have to uninstall the program that is
hijacking you. Many of you will not have installed it intentionally, several of these plug-ins come bundled with
other programs and install automatically. On the other hand you may know you have installed the plug-in and find
it very useful. Gator is a very popular and useful program, we even run ads for it on both Freeware
Home & Kids Freeware. BUT their "Offer Companion" plug-in overlays
the banners at the top of web pages with their own advertisers! We do not advertise or recommend this.
We have no control over the ads they are showing you and your kids!
Microsoft Internet Explorer is the only browser that these plug-ins will work with so we suggest that
you at least make sure that your children use a different browser such as Netscape or Opera. KidsFreeware
cannot be responsible for the content of links altered in this way and we are very concerned about what is
happening. Listed below you will find some useful links to other sites where you can find out more about these
programs such as eZula's "TopText"; Filemix's "Surf+";
Gator's "Offer Companion";
Thank you for taking the time to read this page, we hope it will help to explain what is happening and help
you to protect your children from inappropriate Internet content.
Dee, Eugene, Garrett.
FURTHER INFORMATION LINKS
Excellent Database of Information Links
Forum discussing "Surf+"
Forum discussing "TopText"
Continuation of the "TopText" discussion
Find out if you have "TopText" installed + lots more information
Forum discussion on Gator's "Offer Companion"
N.B. Most of the forum threads are very long but all of them begin with the information about the
program and most have links to articles on other sites.
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