I clicked on a perfectly innocent site that one of my sites links to, to check the link and Norton caught a download and deleted it. There are some kind of downloadables running through 3rd party stuff people put on sites and I believe they aren't identifiable because they download when the page loads, you don't have to click a thing.

BTW, I got one that Norton caught in a GIF file (heading graphic) on a site a few months ago.

It's got nothing to do with Adsense, there's something else going on.

Well Adsense has a video product, so maybe.

But I thought it was a format we'd have to sign up for before it ran on our sites.

What's wrong with Windows Media Player? Or was that a Mac?

This is on a Windows XP system running Internet Explorer 6.0. This problem just started today and I haven't made any changes to my sites recently.

just for drill, go to the ms website and get the ms spyware tool... it's pretty decent.

you can install just the qt player, without the itunes garbage software... but you kinda have to dig around on the apple quicktime website to find it.

Can anyone confirm that Google video requires users to have Quicktime installed? I was thinking about enabling it on one of my sites but if it's going to be nagging users to install stuff...

No problem here in Vancouver Canada

What's wrong with Windows Media Player?

The Windoze part.

My kids' computer just started showing the same download/upgrade type of message, for either Quicktime or DivX. I did a system scan and it found 3 nasty spyware infections. You might want to do the same.

I would hope they would use flash video for this.

[apple.com...]

Quicktime standalone installer, without iTunes.

The problem I have with just having Windows Media Player is that there are many file formats it won't play. It won't play the new (arguably superior) H.264 codec (usually found in MOV and MP4 files). It won't play DivX (not without additional codecs installed). I have DivX installed and whenever Windows Media Player plays a DivX file, it crashes. (Of course that could just be my system.)

Then again, Quicktime won't play WMVs (Windows Media files), unless you're on a Mac (there's a WMV add-on available for Macs). So you kind of need both players, since there are a lot of videos available online which are not WMV. The other alternative (as mentioned before) is Flash.

The best program I've found is VLC Player [videolan.org]. It'll play WMVs and Quicktime files, DivX, H.264 files, etc. etc., without extra codecs. Too bad it's not available as a plug-in for various browsers.

Getting off on a tangent here, but I'm starting to think that some people can't deal with any video which cannot be played with Windows Media Player. But they need to get over that mind set—because not all video files on the Internet are WMV, and there are many file formats that are better than WMV.

I didn't see a Google video ad yet but I'm pretty sure that they must be flash based videos. Just like the videos at video.google.com, regardless of the format the video was submitted in, Google should convert to flash.

>>>The problem I have with just having Windows Media Player is that there are many file formats it won't play. It won't play the new (arguably superior) H.264 codec (usually found in MOV and MP4 files). It won't play DivX (not without additional codecs installed).<<<

divx and h.264 don't matter, because they don't have any internet market share... and neither does qt, for that matter.

right now it's all flash and wmv... the latter because in part, it's the defacto standard in the porn and movie industries(best 'net drm there is), and the former because of it's overwhelming use on sites like youtube.

i guess that google video is using some kind of drm on the flash clips it sells? no doubt they will be using flash on this new stuff as well.

I'm pretty sure that they must be flash based videos

I've certainly been promted to download a Flash plug-in. So at least some of the video ads are Flash.

divx and h.264 don't matter, because they don't have any internet market share... and neither does qt, for that matter.

No, it doesn't. But that doesn't mean it's inferior, and that isn't going to stop many content providers from making video using these formats, since the quality is better. (For instance, a lot of small filmmakers or "arty" filmmakers prefer H.264 and/or DivX.)

Does this change the fact that WMV and Flash have the market share? No. But it does mean that a surfer who won't view anything if it's not WMV might (depending on their interests) miss out on some content. I've encountered this already (I'm "dabbling" in web video). Visitors are paralyzed by the thought of any video that is not WMV. So they pass over video which won't play in Windows Media Player.

Now, the person providing the content can respond in two ways: They can start making WMVs (and for business purposes that makes the most sense—surrender to the inevitable). Or they can hold fast and say, "Nope, it just looks too [crummy] (insert a stronger word here) in WMV, I won't do it!" Which means that less people will see their video, but which also means that those who would enjoy seeing their video are depriving themselves, since they're too lazy or apathetic (or ignorant) to figure out that the World Does Not Revolve around WMV.

right now it's all flash and wmv... the latter because in part, it's the defacto standard in the porn and movie industries(best 'net drm there is), and the former because of it's overwhelming use on sites like youtube.

I can understand Flash's popularity—no player needs to pop up to play the file, it all works seamlessly. Except that when I upgraded to the latest version of Flash, some of the Flash videos I created refused to load. (Don't know what that's about.) Yes, Flash is the wave of the future, because it is so hassle-free. Now, if we could only get the picture quality better . . .

>>>No, it doesn't. But that doesn't mean it's inferior<<<

it's not about picture quality, it's about market share... putting video on the web that nobody has the player for means the people on your website will leave without seeing the video... people will not sit thru a player download... last time i looked, the basic version of qt was a 48 mb download?

all of these new codecs give decent picture quality, so it's a question of whether or not you have the professional tools and the know-how to create quality web video... flash and qt require pro tools to create useable web video, but the microsoft wmv encoder is a free download.

Back to the original post of beggers. I ran into the same exact thing today, and also concluded it was caused by Adsense code before coming here with the hope to find an answer. Most of the pages on my site are also just basic HTML with no frills, so I was surprised to see IE wanting to install an add-on from my pages. After while, I realized the download prompt did not show on pages without Adsense code, so on an offending page I removed the Adsense javascript to check that out and boom, on reload the download prompt disappeared.

The exact message that IE 7 throws, is this:

"This website wants to run to following add-on: 'QuickTimeCheck Scriptable Object' from 'Apple Computer, Inc. (unverified publisher)'."

No message from Firefox Browser. I have no issues with this computer either, as I regularly scan for spyware and viruses. Works as well as it has in the past and nothing turns up from Windows Defender, etc.

I am kind of surprised and disappointed to find only one other person with this problem. This one has stumped me so much I'm posting here for the first time in over a year.

BTW - yes, I also get the prompt from the site in beggers profile.

I'm seeing that message on all websites that have Adsense … when viewed with IE7 beta 3.

people will not sit thru a player download... last time i looked, the basic version of qt was a 48 mb download?

No, the link I gave before, for the Standalone version of QT, is 20 MB. VLC Player (which will play almost anything) is something like 8 MB.

I don't understand why so many people are resistant to other media players. When I started out on computers (Windows 3.1 and quickly upgraded to 95) I thought nothing of downloading Quicktime and other players. (And my dial-up connection was around 28.8!) Of course, QT was a smaller file size back then. But I wasn't scared of doing that, and I certainly didn't think that I could get by with just Windows Media Player. Horrors! There are many other media types floating around the Internet, and I don't want to lose access to them, simply because I'm too apathetic or lazy to download another media player. (And when VLC Player will play just about anything, and it's a size that won't inconvenience someone on slow dial-up, there really is no excuse.)

all of these new codecs give decent picture quality, so it's a question of whether or not you have the professional tools and the know-how to create quality web video...

They all give approximately an "okay" picture quality, but for the "artiste" filmmaker or videomaker, there is a difference. I know of a marvelous videomaker who uses DivX, and I've seen NOTHING as beautiful as her videos encoded with WMV. NOTHING. And her file sizes are small compared to anything near as good done with WMV. So, for basic content, where the desire to squeeze every bit of beautiful detail (or perhaps to achieve picture sharpness that is difficult to distinguish from DVD) is not present, sure, WMV will do okay. But for those who want more, WMV is not going to hack it—not even remotely.

Flash and qt require pro tools to create useable web video, but the microsoft wmv encoder is a free download.

MPEG Streamclip [squared5.com] is free (or can be used with an optional $20 QT plug-in) and can produce very nice video in several file formats. There are programs for $50 or less which will create Flash video for Windows. On the Mac side, there are two inexpensive shareware apps (at least) which make decent Flash video.

I am kind of surprised and disappointed to find only one other person with this problem. This one has stumped me so much I'm posting here for the first time in over a year.

count me in! similar problem detected on ie7 beta 3. i installed it short time ago only to discover that it's still incredibly buggy and returned to ie6.
surfing on one of my web pages, a browser prompt states, that the page i'm requesting wants to install some kind of windows media player add-on.

since this page contains an adsense block and a few people here seem to have encountered similar problems, i assume that the adsense javascript triggers the message.

that s*cks! is it some kind of trick to discourage adsense publishers or what? and as announced they actually want to implement this buggy piece of crap as automatic update in the fourth quarter..

adsensers, this is serious! if visitors are accidentally prompted to install software while surfing your pages, they have to think you're a phishing scam or such.. if this remains see your earnings drop like a hot potato the day ie7 installs on every other computer.

is it some kind of trick to discourage adsense publishers or what? adsensers, this is serious! if visitors are accidentally prompted to install software while surfing your pages, they have to think you're a phishing scam or such.. if this remains see your earnings drop like a hot potato the day ie7 installs on every other computer.

You really said it all. I was thinking a lot of the same thing, but tried to restrain myself from connecting this to the google/msn war -- that would be pretty dirty. It is pretty odd though, because it's not triggered by all javascript in general.

I'm certainly concerned about the average surfer getting that message from default settings. They might consider my site to be 'suspicious' or 'not secure' because of that and leave, even though it's fine.

As of now, I guess it is just a matter of not enough people upgrading and trying the latest IE beta to be complaining about it... yet. (Which thankfully also means that few people are seeing that on our sites right now, but seriously -- an auto update would be chaos)

I was getting the message on IE6, not IE7.

My users are also reporting that a page that contains Adsense ads will automatically popup Acrobat Reader ..! (or at least open Acrobat.exe running to the background)

Investigated a littlebit, and it happens only with IE (all versions, tested with 5.5 & 6.0 - firefox not affected). And the problem IS 100% sure in Google's Adsense javascript code - our site has not been modified in any way during the last few days and the problems started this morning for many users. Also the Adsense javascript does have the header things for quicktime, acrobat & etc ..
var plugins=new Array("image/svg-xml", "application/x-director", "application/x-shockwave-flash", "audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin", "video/quicktime", "application/x-mplayer2", "application/pdf")

No need to mention that the Adsense code in our site is of course directly copied from the adsense ad wizard and has not been modified ......

Now the question is:

a) how to disable this? Guess its not allowed to alter the javascript, so google would need to fix their bugs themselves.
b) why there is nothing on Google's site about this?

For now I've had to disable all Adsense ads until I get a reply or a fix from Google. Also just contacted them, but knowing their speed, it takes 2-3 days to get some general "blahblah" reply with no real information. :-(

[edited by: jatar_k at 5:26 pm (utc) on Aug. 15, 2006]
[edit reason]
[1][edit reason] fixed sidescroll [/edit] [/edit][/1]

Also to add, the acrobat.exe opens also on ANY other website that displays adsense ads. Tried a couple others (not related to my site), and the same happens as on my own site too ...

(IE6.0 & winXP that is still)

Google ought to fix this darn fast ....

ok, let's summarize so far:

- browser prompt "This website wants to run to following add-on: ..." or automatic execution of a software

- message appears only on pages with adsense javascript, presumably triggered by a code line

- message appears only in internet explorer, apparently all versions

since the problem exists only since a few days and we have not altered the adsense code i assume the mess was imported through the automatic windows update? and who needs to fix it: google or microsoft?

[edited by: moTi at 1:34 pm (utc) on Aug. 15, 2006]

I didn't have any of these problems, so I did a little test myself.

I turned off the Acrobat reader Active X control in IE7.
Went to my site with Adsense, finding a nag screen that I need Acrobat reader for my site :(

It happens indeed only on sites with adsense.

You can see the check in the show_ads.js (grab it from your temporary internet files).

I think Google wants there users to install these tools (because of the Google toolbar packed with it?) and is using us publishers to enforce them to do so.

I just had a complaint from one of the website users regarding a prompt to install qt activex control. I don't have any QT elements on my page and definitely don't want users to be prompted to install QT activex in order to view Adsense ads. I have text ads only in my account settings. Not happy...

Here are my tests:

On a mostly clean drive (just my spare test drive to check sites on IE6, only programs installed are Firefox, Homesite and Kerio firewall). I installed windows updates one by one (clearing private data and rebooting between each one).. nothing happened.

Installed Quicktime, the firewall popped up saying "Quicktime task launched by IE" when I checked a page again with Adsense, it's a plain html page.. no video content at all. (Not the IE bar I see in my main drive using IE7, just my firewall popup).

Did a rollback to get rid of updates and Quicktime, checked, no firewall alert. Install Quicktime, no Windows updates, alert again.

Now I know that a windows restore isn't the best way to really remove stuff, but the updates weren't all listed in the remove programs list (only a few) so it looked like my only option to try it without them.

That drive has never had Google toolbar, IE7 or acrobat and only has Quicktime after these tests.

So, it looks to me like:

1) Windows updates don't have anything to do with it
(I went back to windows update, it saw I needed all the updates again after the rollback, none were in my remove programs list.. looks like they were gone.)

2) Highly unlikely it's spyware. That drive is almost entirely unused. I am scanning right now though to check again.

3) Will only open programs already installed? (I don't have acrobat in that other drive, never saw that trying to open. Nothing happened until after I installed Quicktime.)
This is a bit odd though, others are having it happen differently?

4) It happens even when Adsense is set to "Text ads only". I disabled image ads, changed the code, cleared private data, still saw the bar in IE7.