Ebay Changes Internet Explorer Settings

I was having a problem with my Internet Explorer, i.e. on occasions it couldn't find any websites. I consulted with my tech guy and he found a setting under Options/Advanced Settings that wasn't properly checked. When it happened again, I remembered I had just had problems deleting an ebay email I had received (deleting it locked up my email software - not the first time), and I wondered if there was a causal relationship. The next time I received an ebay email (advertisement), I checked the setting, went back and deleted the email (sure enough it locked up my email software) and then went back and looked at the setting. Sure enough it had changed! ebay was effing with my system. I reported it to ebay, who, of course, said it couldn't be them, I needed to check with my Internet software provider (Microsoft). To say the least, I have changed my settings on my ebay account so they cannot send me any html emails - only text. This may be a Explorer version 10 problem, but still.

It is nothing that ebay is doing. It is much more likely that it is malware. IE 10 went 'end of life' on January 12, 2016 and note that older browsers are very vulnerable to malware.
But no website or email should ever change your browser configuration without all kinds of bells and whistles going off. If ebay tried to do this they would come under huge adverse publicity. There is a good chance that the email in question is not really from ebay. You might want to take further precautions (change passwords, scan computer etc.)
Don

Don,

I hope I wasn't implying that the change was deliberate, but rather some sort of unintended interaction between the email and the software. As far as I.E 10 goes, my tech guys won't even touch the new Microsoft software - what is it - Edge? They say it's still buggy and causes problems.

Alan

Alan,
Understood. But no email should ever change any browser config. And a properly configured computer would never allow a browser config change without warnings popping up.

I see you are running Windows 7, you really should upgrade to IE 11 (Edge only runs on Windows 10.) Staying with IE 10 is trouble and it is also slower than IE 11.
I am concerned that you clicked on this email and that it appears something changed. Phishing emails can be very tricky, I got one the other day which almost fooled me. It looked like an legitimate UPS email but the links, while appearing in the emails to be correct, where actual spoofed to some domain in eastern Europe.

But it certainly is not ebay doing this, either intentional or unintentionally. But when a browser goes end of life, no security updates are provided and it becomes a petri dish.
Don

Edit: if you want to forward the email to me I can take a look at it and see what the heck it is doing.

Recently ebay has been giving me strange unformatted results for certain actions. An example when I clicked on "Advanced Search" is shown below;





I asked ebay about it and they knew nothing but suggested I try another browser and clear my cache. I did but still get the same result on Chrome or Edge. Sometimes the odd looking form works and sometimes it doesn't.

That is exactly what a web page looks like when the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is not loading. For some reason(s) your browser is not loading it properly.
Don

I wonder why only a few pages are impacted?

While it is uncommon for ebay CSS to fail to load, it does happen all too frequently when the ebay site is busy. As it is, some ebay pages take too long to load. It makes me wonder if ebay encourages slow loading ads that will lock up the browser until they load to keep traffic at manageable levels. Also, I haven't seen this problem nearly as often after switching to Microsoft Edge.

The only thing that saves Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 is that it will ask for permission to restart a web session after a drive by attack. I notice that IE 11 is also vulnerable to some types of exploits that can change some browser startup settings. I had not seen any problems with opening emails affecting settings, but I suppose it is still possible in IE 10 if some security updates are missing. It is safer to use a dedicated email program like Outlook. Suspect emails should be moved to the spam folder before opening to suppress any active content. In any case, the fix is not to use Internet Explorer except when absolutely necessary. Because Microsoft Edge does fails to ask permission before restarting sessions after a browser takedown, it may be necessary to disconnect from the Internet before restarting the browser to get rid of a session that hides bowser controls.

The moral of the story? Have Google Chrome available for certain web sites and don't ever use Firefox. Ads on some newspaper sites like the LA times are so aggressive, that using Google Chrome is advised to suppress hostile screen takeover attempts. Some sites are so out of date that they don't support Microsoft Edge or HTML5.

I've stopped recommending browsers. They all suck. They all start out ok but all of them eventually have problems. To be fair, many of the problems are actually brought on by us, the users. We tend to add plugins and extensions which break things and/or slow things down a lot. And when you consider the potential number of combinations (between browsers, browser version, operating system, security patches, extensions, etc.) trying to troubleshoot and understand the issues is maddeningly complex.

And CSS issues? Chrome drives me crazy. Virtually every other browser will properly regenerate a web page after a webpage CSS update. But not Chrome, Chrome retains the old CSS in its cache even when you force a page refresh. You have to manually clear its cache every time you make a CSS change when developing.
Don

I recently purchased one of the high visibility computer protection programs that is frequently on TV. It has blocked soooo many ads and attempts to infiltrate my system. Amazing. ebay in particular will rack up 8 - 10 attempts every time I log on.