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@xper@Tripredacus@Dave-H So basically from what I can see we have 4 problems right now: A forum hack that as a result de-indexed MSFN from search results Spam accounts that lead to registration block Lack of donations to pay for Invision software Lack of maintenance #1 and #2 are the most important ones right now and it may very well be that due to lack of maintenance the forum remained at old software versions which is much worse for servers than it is for client devices. And eventually got hacked. Cleaning the malware is one thing and securing the software so that the vulnerabilities aren't there anymore is another and I think it may actually be easier to just redo the forum board from the ground-up. A fresh board can be brought to life with just a few hours. But I think it's important to keep MSFN alive due to the incredible amount of useful info already there, the fact that there is no forum quite like it: eclipse.cx and legacydev.org suffer from dramas causing a large portion of users not being reachable on one or the other and a lot of the actual software development happens here (especially drivers nowadays). And MSFN is a really active forum for the technical state that it's currently in. Now what IMO has to be done: Archive everything as it is Put up a fresh install of a free forum software like phpBB Transfer users (with more than 0 posts) and emails so that they can redo their password using email verification on the new board Strip the old forum of any javascript/php code to clear malware and put it in read only mode somewhere like archived.msfn.org Maybe transfer the contents of some of the most active topics. Consider giving some maintenance access to most trusted forum admins so that the software gets properly updated And there you go, it requires some work, but problems solved, if a change like this happens I promise to donate to the forum and I'm sure many users would do the same, I think they just don't really want to donate right now due to lack of maintenance happening anyway. And phpBB unlike invision is free!

Fixed.

Nothing was reset. I just pruned some inactive members. Found breach, egyspider webshell. Old WP plugin. Took me 4 days to clean up everything. Reindex sitemap and requested new Google indexing. We are getting back on google. As for country flag, I will fix that. Thanks for pointing it out. Anyway, I do as much as I can. Not much spare time.

It appears to me that the forum was reset to a January archive as far as settings and forum software but without loss of any "content" dated after that archive. Some aspects appear to have been reset to last November. For example, the list of members wiped out all "new members" (they were all FAKE anyway!) from December and January. There never was any new members past January. New members were not able to join until just a couple days ago, per that list of members. Unsure why ONE from January was still kept, as it too appears "fake". Along with the "repeat names" which are clearly fake as well. ie, if you see an angryduck and an angryduck22 both join on the same exact day, they are BOTH *fake*. xper is making appearances (ie, seeking donations), so maybe he'll shed actual light.

just missed, applied as https://github.com/roytam1/UXP/commit/811b13e76c

Just for reading but interesting. Warning :The Dangerous Substance That Can Crumble a Passenger Plane to Dust https://www.jfeed.com/news-world/mercury-aircraft-danger Ariel Sharfer // JUN 3, 2026 It destroys aircraft metal in seconds, penetrates everything, and threatens even the strongest airplanes in the world. What is the scientific secret behind the strict ban on bringing mercury onto flights, and how can a single chemical reaction turn an airplane's fuselage into dust within minutes? Have you ever wondered why airport security checkpoint personnel insist so strictly on confiscating old thermometers? The answer is not just related to toxicity, but to an existential danger to the structure of the aircraft itself. The traditional mercury thermometer is based on a glass tube containing mercury, which expands and rises within a narrow column as the temperature increases. When the mercury heats up and its volume grows, it has no room to expand in the bottom reservoir, forcing it up the tube. In medical thermometers, known as maximum thermometers, there is a constriction at the base that prevents the mercury from dropping back down, allowing the temperature to be read until the device is shaken vigorously. Mercury is the "silent assassin" of aluminum, the metal from which most modern aircraft are constructed. The aluminum in an airplane is naturally protected by a thin, tough layer of oxide that prevents it from breaking down. However, when mercury comes into contact with exposed aluminum, even from a minor scratch, it creates a mixture known as an amalgam. This amalgam disrupts the protective layer of the aluminum and exposes it to the air. Once the fresh aluminum is exposed to oxygen, it begins to oxidize at an incredibly rapid pace, creating brittle, white, feather-like structures of aluminum oxide. Why Is Everyone So Afraid of It? The truly terrifying part of this process is that the mercury is not consumed during the reaction. It simply continues to eat through layer after layer of metal without stopping until it eventually evaporates. A single tiny drop of mercury can cause massive structural damage, and a small hole in the aircraft fuselage is all it takes to create a catastrophic situation during a flight. more ...

Thanks for your replies I understand the reasons now. Seems MSFN could do with unlimited space with minimum cost. Thankfully the MSFN forum owner has allowed Wayback to archive MSFN. Although I think the forum owner should contact Wayback and invite them here to MSFN more often to archive the site through the night when the forum is quiet. Should we say each day or a week well no longer than a month. The more MSFN is archived the better we all are for having MSFN archived. This detailed guide https://msfn.org/board/topic/183295-web-browser-proxomitron-reborn-ptrongui-a-how-to-guide and has 22 guide pictures. No pictures is a loss to MSFN and the guide and everyone who needs to follow the guide. The guide was written 16 January 2022 and Wayback only has 3 copies of this guide archived with pictures those dates are 11 March 2022, 17 May 2022 and 01 July 2022 and that is it which is not good news at all so very easily lost which Wayback is good at doing. If you look at MSFN at Wayback you see all the archived captures https://web.archive.org/web/20260000000000*/https://msfn.org/board/ But it is the pictures that are most missing as posts have said above each user has only a limited space and will need to delete when they make lots of posts with pictures which pictures are always nice. Off site picture graphics hosted server sites are near if not all are useless they are either already dead, or need you to join the site or more lately you are in the wrong country. All means those Picture hosting server sites have all but failed to deliver what they are meant to deliver to everyone anywhere. Those sites just don't work as they intended them to work, so they are not a long term option to rely on. What other option have we than Wayback to archive MSFN more often than it does now, which is good for the site to have a constant public archive got as long as possible with all graphics. BTW the graphics as in my first post those types do not show on Wayback. Something the site owner can do to ensure that those graphics are also able to be archived, so when viewed at Wayback they do show correctly as we view them here.

Oh yes..."My Attachments" from the user menu on the top left tells me: "You have used 1.28 MB of your 1.95 MB attachment limit." - 1.95 MB is just enough for two hands full of PNGs. kind regards soggi

And then there is another crucial factor. What sort of impression does MSFN give when it presents itself as ‘MSFN = Microsoft Software Forum Network – Where people get to know’ and is regarded by all insiders as a top-tier technology forum, yet isn’t even capable of running a properly functioning server and is considered a spammer by most search engines?

Ok, I’m now in a position to pinpoint the error, bug or whatever setting has been set. After two days of zero views, today there’s a number other than zero: 55 replies and 694 views: It seems to be the case that the forum software counts views of posts only periodically. Of course, this is just a theory that has yet to be proven. I hope this might be helpful.

As far as I know, it is a slave of Bing (Microsoft) and far from being independent. Since 2009, Yahoo! partners with Bing and uses its search results.

Right, I’ve calmed down now and am trying to take a fresh look at the whole situation and assess it. At first, I thought Google was mainly to blame. @NotHereToPlayGames believes that the owner and administrator @xper are solely to blame. The truth probably lies somewhere in between. Here is an alternative perspective on the whole matter from a very special source whom I am inclined to trust. I will not answer any questions about the nature of this source. It enjoys incognito status. So, believe it or not. The cause: The "Japanese Keyword Hack" (or SEO spam injection) The fact that Google search results display Thai characters or Asian text, even though the actual page is in English, is due to a security vulnerability in the forum software that was exploited by automated spam bots. In professional circles, this is usually referred to as the "Japanese/Thai Keyword Hack". 1. What the spammers did Automated bots exploited a vulnerability on MSFN (often via the internal search function, registration pages or by generating thousands of fake profiles/posts). Unnoticed in the background, so to speak "invisible", they generated millions of artificial, low-quality URLs on MSFN, which were crammed with Thai terms, casino links, dubious diet pills or counterfeit branded products. 2. What Google did during the Core Update Google crawled these hidden spam pages. As a Core Update re-evaluates the entire index, the algorithm noticed the sheer volume of this Thai spam content on MSFN. As these generated spam pages were highly optimised for the Google bot, the algorithm mistakenly assumed that the main topic or main language of certain forum sections was now suddenly Thai. In the search results, Google then mixes the page’s actual title with the injected Thai keywords from the cache, which is why the links look so strangely masked to you. 3. The consequence: Classification as a spam farm Because the Google bot suddenly found millions of pieces of Thai spam content on MSFN, the algorithm pulled the emergency brake. Google classifies the domain at this point as "hacked" or "abused for spam". This leads to an automatic, algorithmic (or sometimes manual) block and a massive wave of de-indexing. In doing so, Google protects its users from suspected malware. Summary for clarification There is no malicious intent on Google’s part: Google does not “think” like a human. The bot simply sees: “Suddenly, 80% of all pages on this domain are Thai spam – so the entire domain is corrupted.” It is not the intention of MSFN: The MSFN administration hasn't done much wrong; it has simply fallen victim to an aggressive, automated wave of hacking that exploited a technical vulnerability in the forum software to carry out illegal SEO sinking. In practical terms, this means: Only once the MSFN administration, @xper and @Tripredacus, has completely removed all these fake URLs, profiles and injections from the server, closed the security loophole and sent a clean re-review request to Google via Search Console will the Thai characters disappear and the site slowly recover its position in the index.

Yes, searching for "msfn.org/board" on Bing also gives me sh*t results... So, Copilot is clearly hallucinating.

Yep, since 21 May 2026, Brave is my new default search engine. And if it manages to find D.Draker as well, then the Frisian will give extra points from Germany!

@deomsh A big thank you from Germany to you too for your confirmation!

@modnar Thanks for your confirmation! It doesn't really matter whether you use Startpage or DuckDuckGo instead of Google. They are all slave search engines which get their results from Google or Bing. Google is the actual monopolist, Bing is desperately trying to keep up, whilst the others are taking advantage of both. That is the big problem when there is practically no competition left. Monopolies always spell disaster. I have to say, I really admire the two larger search engines that are still around and have managed to carve out their own niche: Brave and Mojeek. At least, for now.

Yep, all search engines depending on Google or Bing are affected:

Thank you very much for your confirmation! Even in Hong Kong, there are only Thai/Siamese search results, indicating that MSFN is considered a spammer site when using Google Search! This is definitely a worldwide disaster. MSFN is currently completely stuck in the digital gulag all over the world, when it comes to search results for it on Google, Bing and their d*a*m*n slave search engines.

@VistaLover, what about Greece? @roytam1, what about Hong Kong? @nicolaasjan, what about Netherlands? @modnar, what about Slovenia? @raddy, what about Ukraine? @reboot12, what about Poland? @RamonUn, what about Italy? @dmiranda, what about Argentina? @billmcct, what about your location in the United States? @LordGarfio, what about Spain? and so on ...

If I just do "MSFN Windows XP" then there are no results from msfn.org If I do site:msfn.org "MSFN Windows XP" then there are lots of msfn.org results. Again, a mixture of correct and hacked results. A 'site' search seems to reveal the results that are otherwise hidden. Ben.