angelfire hacked
Mood:  don't ask
Now Playing: hacked
Topic: News
Hello angelfire users..
I am posting due to malicious cracking that has been goin on with one of my sites..(not current account bloggin under) anyway.. has anyone else had problems with their site being hacked? I have bravenet and it logged the ip that cracked the webshell, the url is different though, looking like https://www.angelfire.lycos.com/cgi-auth/webshell?currentDir=&breadCRUMB=1
instead of ending in just webshell.. has anyone been compromised like this? if not.. KNOW that there is a gaping security hole in angelfire.. back up your sh1t before it gets whiped...help if you can.
thank you

New Angelfire "Similar Sites" Sidebar
Topic: News
Angelfire has launched a new feature on free member pages, a "similar sites" sidebar. This sidebar, which only pops up in Internet Explorer, gives visitors to Angelfire free sites links to other sites (both on Angelfire and Tripod) which contain similar information. The intent is to provide visitors with more options, if they are unable to find the information they are looking for on the first site they go to.

This is an improved version over what was launched on Tripod last month and there should be fewer problems as a result. There are still cases where some uncommon browsers, such as SBC Yahoo! or Juno's custom version, have difficulty browsing pages. We are still working on those issues and hope to have them resolved soon. (If you are a JavaScript wizard and are interested in helping out, you can respond to this post.)

In conjunction with this release, we have also recently decreased the number of popups and popunders which are displayed when visiting free sites. We have also worked to eliminate ads that prompt you to download software and other ads which were unfriendly. You will still see popup ads when browsing free pages, but we hope that the annoyance factor has been dialed down somewhat.

If you have any problems with your site or the sidebar as a result of the release, please post your responses here.

JP

Angelfire Email Shutdown
Topic: News
"Angelfire Email" is being shut down next week. This was a very, very old cobrand of Lycos Mail (previously Mailcity) which has not allowed new signups in two years. Members that use the service have already been notified via email several weeks ago, but we felt that it was appropiate to post about it here just in case.

Users of Angelfire Email are encouraged to either signup for a Free Account at Lycos Mail (mail.lycos.com) or they can use Angelfire's own premium email services which are available in many of our for-pay packages. (Note that Angelfire doesn't currently offer an easy web interface for its mail offerings, you are expected to use MS Outlook, Netscape, Eudora, or a similar offline mail tool.)

As a bit a humorous (to me) side note, with this shutdown also goes the most misguided attempt at cobranding site URLs I'd ever seen. The old URL for the site used to be: email.angelfire.mailcity.lycos.com. Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it? :)

JP

Resolved: Ad Placement Problems
Topic: News
The Angelfire ad problems have been found and fixed. Thanks for everyone that reported the problem (both here and through email) so that it could be traced and debugged.

If anyone still sees any irregularities or other problems with the way ads are serving on their pages, please respond in this thread.

JP

All pics replaced?
Mood:  sad
Topic: News
Can someone inform us about the images ect our angelfire pages?
I was not informed on any changes AND WOULD LIKE TO ATLEAST GET ALL MY FILES BACK IF YOU ARE shuting everyone down.

Please post something here to explaIN THE ACTIONS???/

Angelfire Upgrade
Topic: News
Yesterday, Angelfire completed a long-awaited and major backend upgrade. (Tripod users may recall a similar upgrade made there about a month ago.) This upgrade does not have many user-visible changes, but it does include many, many bugfixes that have been queueing up over time.

1. Numerous blogs fixes, including two new beach-themed templates.
2. Webshell & advanced editor updates.
3. Several major bugs in the remote loading block for free accounts have been fixed.
4. Better linking with Lycos Domains.
5. WebStats fixes (premium only)
6. Other stuff that I'm forgetting.

WebStats reports for today will be slightly delayed because of the upgrade, but they should all be available today.

If you see any odd problems on the site today, respond in this thread and I'll make sure they get looked at. I've raised the ads and frontpage concerns already; the remote loading block stuff is as-designed however.

JP

AF Update
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Mambo de Chocobo
Topic: News
I'm not sure if I can do this regularly, but I thought it might be nice to post a quick summary of some of the changes to the site from the last week. This isn't a full list, really just the things that I can immediately remember.

1. There was a major update to WebStats feature (for Argon accounts and above) where the traffic summary and graphing tool will now show all your traffic for the last month, not just in one-day increments. The interface for the feature hasn't changed yet though and there are still some open bugs that are known and being worked on.

2. CGI scripts placed in subdirectories of your /cgi-bin/ directory will now work properly. This was a bug. There are still bugs that Lycos Domains-assigned accounts can't use their domainnames in conjunction with CGI scripts, but that is also being worked on. (CGI also requires an Argon account or better.)

In addition, there was a lot of other cleanups and other minor bits that changed. For example, all the accounts with the recursive listings (as reported here the other day) have been fixed.

So, if this kind of information is useful to be posted here, please let me know. I have to run it by the powers-that-be to make sure we don't 'give too much away', but mentioning the problems fixed and new features seems pretty reasonable to me.

Blog Update
Topic: News
Two minor updates went out for blogs today. Both of these fixes apply primarily to "open communities" and won't really be that useful for individual user blogs. (The intention is to let all users atart their own open communities eventually, but we're ironing out the bugs first using the Clubs as the 'beta' sites for the new features.)

1. Comment moderation has been improved. If you post to a community blog (such as the club), you now have access to moderate all the comments in response to your post. Some other aspects of moderation have also been cleaned up.

2. Topic selection has been fixed. All members should now be able to correctly set the topic for new posts.

This release also introduces two 'Club Dread'-themed blog templates.

JP