Scam "survey" posing as Opera offer

aimzz

aimzz

Let me know if I'm wrong, but I can't imagine Opera doing such a thing...
I went to a site I've never visited before. It wasn't an iffy site-- just a bio page about an author. As soon as the page opened, there was a weird beep & I got page overlay titled: 2019 Annual Visitor Survey. It said that I'm one of the few chosen lucky Opera users who could win a gift card if I complete an Opera Survey... Now, if I just click this link and enter my information...
(I put the link info at bottom.)

I'm wondering if it's a script that detects the user's browser & fills in Opera, Firefox, Chrome, etc. It reminded me of the old days when a user would open a website & a big "danger" pop-up would announce "Your computer has a virus" (or 10,000 viruses or whatever). When I saw the one today, I felt contaminated & slammed it shut. Should have done a screenie at least.

The "survey" hijacked me. My browsing history only shows the "survey" page, with no trace of the page I was going to. I copied the "survey" link from my browsing history if you're feeling adventurous: 2019 Annual Visitor Survey

Here's the google search link I clicked originally: Bio – OLIVIER BERNIER.

Is there a link on Opera to report such things?

A Former User @aimzz

@aimzz

I'm wondering if it's a script that detects the user's browser

Just for your information: Every web browser transmits some core information in its so-called user agent by default.

Check here which user agent your web browser transmits.

A Former User

@aimzz My msvp hosts file blocks it as malicious domain
nothing to do with opera.

aimzz

aimzz

@yanta
Thanks... I never changed the agent from the default, but never stopped to learn what it actually means, either. I think it's Mozilla, based on the page you linked. There's a list of several, but Mozilla is first. It's explained lower on the page so I'll find out a little later when there's time to read it in detail.

Your User Agent is:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/70.0.3538.102 Safari/537.36 OPR/57.0.3098.116

aimzz

aimzz

@ceedee said in Scam "survey" posing as Opera offer:

msvp hosts file

Thanks. I didn't think it was from Opera. I don't know anything about msvp hosts file (among many other things). It looks interesting in quick google check. Is it something you use in addition to ad blockers or is it incorporated into ad blockers. It would be nice to have something extra because sites use a lot of work-arounds for ad blockers these days.

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @aimzz

If you had used Chrome for example, you probably would had seen 'Chrome' on that scam. Try with other browsers to check.

Maybe you can report it through the face icon in the address bar.

A Former User @aimzz

@aimzz I dont really use any adblockers I just use the program called Hostsman along with the msvp hosts file. never had a problem it blocks 99% of malware sites and ads and other crap.
I have operas adblocker on too cos why not.

http://www.abelhadigital.com/hostsman/