exit.cgi - why, bigweb, why?

Why, bigweb, why do you have to have that exit.cgi thing. Whenever I right click on a link and choose "Save Link Target As" to download something I download exit.cgi instead (with the contents of the file I want to download). Verry annoying, because I have to go into DOS prompt to rename the dam thing.

Can you give an example of where this is not working like you want? I just tried and it works perfectly for me.

BigWeb : I have a question about the exit.cgi too, does it pass along the original referrer URL?

I don't want to look in my logs to see exit.cgi as the referrer, and not be able to see exactly which posts people are coming to me from

I don't get the exit.cgi either. Just tried two and both worked fine.

Here:
http://www.ozzu.com/counter/exit.cgi?ht ... om/geo.wmv
(it may be because i'm using mozilla ( http://mozilla.org/ ) but I don't see the need for it (exit.cgi))

Where did that come from? I've never seen that! I'm almost willing to wonder if you have some adware proggie running you don't know about.

What you posted, I've never seen at OZZU.

i got that link from the "sorry bigweb" thread.

I see what you're saying...you got that from the "properties" on the "signature" links.

Finally just viewed the properties for the sig links, so I at least know what you are talking about. Not sure why that is like that though. Probably something bigweb did to track things would be my first guess.

BWM must be tracking exit links, because they are on just about every link in here, even when you just type a link:

http://google.com

Still when I click on that link and select save target as, it works perfectly fine for me and lets me save geo.wmv right to my computer. I am not sure why it isn't working for you. Does it work fine for everyone else?

As far as the links passing on the referrer, yes Axe it will not disrupt that and all referrers will still be tracked that goto anybody's site as the ref variable is still passed along through people's browsers. Feel free to test it by clicking on a link in your sig and going and checking your stats.

download mozilla and try it. ( http://mozilla.org/ )
I think it is a mozilla specific problem, but I don't see why you would want to have that anyway.

Just tried it and yup it is definetely a Mozilla problem. Mozilla appears to not open the link first to figure out the final destination unlike IE does. I recommend either using IE for links you want to download, or copy and paste the URL into your browser. We are using exit.cgi to track outbound links. For the most part you are not going to be right clicking on links and saving target as anyway.

Okies, I tested it, just to confirm to everybody...

http://www.ozzu.com/counter/exit.cgi?http://www.gotaxe.com/stuff/reftest.php

Interesting lesson. I admit I didn't try Mozilla, but did the IE thing and only noticed what rjstephens was talking about when I viewed properties and saw where the exit was coming from.

Now I see this one and clearly see the exit.cgi in the mouseover in the status bar.
http://www.ozzu.com/sutra40540.html#40540

Hadn't noticed that before and had to look at properties in the sig to see it.

(P.S. That's on IE...not Mozilla)