Since installing 1.5 and immunizing, I have had a problem where all links to items on fatwallet.com, a very popular internet deal forum for the USA that I visit frequently, fail to load. I also found a similar problem with links from XPbargains.com, another useful deal site. Yes, these sites operate by getting 'commission' when you click through the links, though fatwallet will give you back most of the commission with their cash back program if you bother to sign up for it.

Anyway, spybot is blocking these types of links, which I dont think threaten most users, and is a great inconvenience to many users who would like to immunize and block real dangerous sites through the host file.

I think the problem is that spybot blocks apmebf.com and emjcd.com and their www.* equivalents through the host file. I removed these entries and that fixed the problem for these sites. However, I would not be suprised if a few more such anonymous commission sites are being blocked. I am sure some spyware person has tried to use commission sites to make profit, but that does not mean those sites are only used for that.

Then again, maybe I am wrong and some horrible rootkit has hijacked my pc to steal commission from all my clicks to pay for terrorism. But anyway, if these are just commission gathering sites used legitimately by people seeking to keep their bills paid while informing the public of good deals, it might be a good idea to unblock them or break up the host immunize option into a few categories, such as malicious, popup advertising, and normal advertising.

I am just a college student, unaffiliated with these sites, and I took the time to register here and type this so I will not have to delete these few entries from my hosts file every time I immunize. I would appreciate it if others could look into this and help.