On Thu, 9 Sep 2004, Marratxi wrote:

"John" wrote in message
...

I went to their online website for planning applications
http://194.168.41.26/cgi-bin/acolnetcgi.exe

Thanks, John, I got that far too but there is no way that I will open
files with the exe extension !!

You wouldn't have been - going to that URL doesn't download an exe file to
you, it runs an exe file on the webserver, then sends you the results;
it's perfectly safe [1].

It's true that you can't always tell in advance whether a URL leads to
something that downloads or something that runs on the server, but "cgi"
in the URL is a dead giveaway that it's a runner rather than a downloader
[2]. If it does turn out to be a downloader, you should get a dialogue box
asking what to do with it, in which case you can just get rid of it.

tom

[1] Well, as safe as opening any other web page.

[2] Yes, a villain could set up a downloading .exe which looked like a
server-side one, but then they could set one up which looked like
anything, including a normal web page too.

--
The revolving disc of plagues is particularly fun. -- greengolux