Another year goes by, and Webroot's Webfilter FPs are still a joke!

@ There is a known issue regarding intermittant FP's.  If you close your broser and try again, chances are the page will load for you as it is NOT blocked for me.  You have been hit by a known transient bug.
 
To report this, please submit a trouble ticket.  

ohh darn! so it was just my luck I guess! LOL
 
so are you saying that over the past years that I have been submitting many FPs, the web filter has improved ?
 
I'll submit the ticket.....

Yes, just your luck.  I have the filter engaged, I always do, and i see this:
 
 
 
 

 
 
NO issues here, so please do submit that ticket.  BrightCloud has stopped a majority of the issue, but they want data in the form of a trouble ticket when it appears so they can finish naling it down.
 
Thanks.
 

The link opens fine here!

Hello!

Works for me too I must say! 😉

Thanks @ and @ for the confirmation! 
 
Also, here is the actual BrightCloud lookup for the page in question:
 

 
No problems there, and that is the exact data that the Web Filter uses.

Support got back to me saying that they cannot reproduce this issue!
 
I told them that a member on Wilders Security told me this happens sometimes when you open a link via a right click "Open in new tab" which I think is what I did when I accessed that thread.

Hello Maximus,

Thanks for letting us know!

Best Regards!

@MaXimus wrote:
Support got back to me saying that they cannot reproduce this issue!
 
I told them that a member on Wilders Security told me this happens sometimes when you open a link via a right click "Open in new tab" which I think is what I did when I accessed that thread.

That member was me! I pointed out this bug to Webroot and they have replicated it under the above conditions. It happens not sometimes but very often when selecting "Open in a new tab" from a right-click in Firefox (however, curiously never in my experience with links from Google News).
 
It is worrying that Support are not aware of this: to my mind, the Firefox Filter Extension bug arising from right-click "Open in a new tab"  should have immediately flagged up in their minds as the possible cause, as this is a major problem (at least, for those of us who are prone to right-clicking in Firefox!) and also as I understand the development team are actively working on a fix. It seems to be an example of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

"It is worrying that Support are not aware of this"
 
I am not aware of this particular issue but speaking as somebody in Support (well not technically in support but I do support tickets/calls/escalations). In order to be aware of issues they need to be reported. In the same way you cant expect your doctor to magically know if your sick if you dont tell him your symptoms. Support/Q&A are always testing our products but considering the millions of different hardware/software configurations out there we sometimes need input from customers.

@ wrote:
...In order to be aware of issues they need to be reported...we sometimes need input from customers.

Yes, but I gave input, my contact persons were Serena and Daniel (TripleHelix), and Serena said that you were now actively working on a fix for this.
 
I followed this up for a week, scrupulously noting every FP,  the circumstances, the nature of the site , the block warning message and the BrightCloud reputation index, and sent all this information in a 5-page Word document via Daniel to Serena.She also replicated exactly bthe same blocks;
 
So I think I did my job there as a customer, surely? Or perhaps your comment was not addressed to me?

I had a FP issue myself just a few days ago, and I reported it as requested.  The Support agent that I got did not appear to be aware of the issue either, but I then asked to have it escalated to the BrightCloud team.  I did get a reply from Serena, and she is aware and has been working on the problem.

@MaXimus wrote:
Support got back to me saying that they cannot reproduce this issue!
 
@ wrote:
I had a FP issue myself just a few days ago, and I reported it as requested.  The Support agent that I got did not appear to be aware of the issue either

I was really surprised to hear this but even more shocked to read the following:

@ wrote:
I am not aware of this particular issue

I was under the impression that Roy (Rakanisheu) is fairly high in the hierarchy of programmers and that he is even based in the same Webroot territory (Ireland) as the person coordinating the investigation and fixing of the Firefox filter extension bug, Serena, and so I am quite shocked to hear from him that he does not know of this bug (no fault of his, I would imagine).
 
It really does seem to be a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing at Webroot. I compiled my log of FPs in consultation with TripleHelix, shorTcuircuiT and Baldrick. When I discovered what the trigger was and when it was established by Webroot that this was a bug in the Firefox Filter Extension, both TripleHelix and Baldrick surmised that this bug might just be directly or indirectly connected to quite a few or even possibly many of the FPs that have been reported regarding webpage blocks.
 
I would have thought that Support would now be asking targeted questions to those reporting webpage blockage FPs in order to try and ascertain just how many of these blockages may be coming from the Firefox filter extension bug or from possible similar bugs in other browser filter extensions: this with a view to estimating what proportion of blockages may be originating from such cause(s) with a view to escalating this issue to greater priority if that proportion turns out to be high.
 
All the regulars in this Community Forum are aware of this bug. And yet it seems that the Webroot support team and some at least of the Webroot programmers are unaware of it ?! To my mind, this is a real problem.

I am not in Support,QA,or Dev, I have no responsibility to the Web filtering at all. I am not involed in the process of testing,fix or designing the web filtering toolbar. I was merely making a point of support isnt aware of every single issue that may or may not exist. That was my point that was it. This partcular issue has been identified and there are people working on it as we speak. 

OK, Roy. That's good to hear. And of course, I know that there is a team working on this bug. I'm not disputing that.
 
But it does seem to me that it would be a good idea if Support were to be aware of this extension filter bug and were to ask targeted questions to those who report webpage blockage FPs in order to try and ascertain it the proportion of webpage blockages caused by the filter extension bug is high or low. No?

There are some false positives that are intermittent and aren't caused by an actual false positive in the database but by some other problem.  If you're getting one of these make sure that support escalates the issue to the Brightcloud team.  They should be aware of it, but they aren't just tell them to do it anyway 🙂