Is moonsighting.com infected with viruses?? Question about accuracy

[crimsontide06]

Every time I go to moonsighting AFTER closing my browser,and click "prayer times" I get pop ups which trigger my anti virus...along with a warning to go back. I always close the pop ups and then go to looking at the prayer times as I was doing. If I do not close my browser and go back, I do not get a pop up or virus alert. It only happens with the prayer times link.

My second question is; Which website is most accurate? I have bookmarked; Islamic finder.org, Salah times.com, and moon sighting.com .

All three at various times are different by as little as 3 minutes and sometimes up to an hour difference between times for the same prayers. This mostly happens with Fajr and Asr prayers.Local Mosque uses Islamic Finder.

 

[AabiruSabeel]

I checked the website, and I got it too. On further investigation, it seems like it could be coming from another website geoloc1 which is embedded there for generating location map for visitors. I checked geoloc1 on virustotal.com it says 1 malware on several of its pages. https://www.virustotal.com/#/domain/geoloc1.9cd47096ab1495d8d3b18667f6a52b9c.com


As for the time differences, they must be because they all are using different calculation techniques. For moonsighting.com, they have explained their calculations here: http://moonsighting.com/how-we.html
For others, they mostly use one of the standard methods, either Muslim World League or Umm Al-Qura. There are some other methods as well.

Because all these websites depend on mathematical calculations, it is not easy to say which is more accurate for each location. The time changes with location as well as latitude. Most of them take both these parameters into account but you can still not be 100% sure whether the calculation is 100% right.

The best method to find out which is correct is to actually find out prayer times by observing the sun.


To be on the safe side, for starting time of prayer, always use the last time and for end time of prayer, use the earliest time. That way you will be sure that you have prayed within the correct time period.
For example, if starting time for Fajr is mentioned as 5:07, 5:10 and 5:12 on different sites, then choose 5:12 as that is the last time starting. And for end time of Fajr (sunrise) if they say it is at 6:36, 6:38 and 6:42 then choose 6:36 as the end time and pray within 5:12 to 6:36.


Whenever you pray at the Masjid, then simply follow the time of the Masjid itself, as long as they not extremely off time limits.

 

[crimsontide06]

Thank you! So, it's safe to go as long as I do not go to that other sites main pages?

I checked the website, and I got it too. On further investigation, it seems like it could be coming from another website geoloc1 which is embedded there for generating the location map for the visitors. I checked geoloc1 on virustotal.com it says 1 malware on several of its pages. https://www.virustotal.com/#/domain/geoloc1.9cd47096ab1495d8d3b18667f6a52b9c.com

As for the time differences, they must be because they all are using different calculation techniques. For moonsighting.com, they have explained their calculations here: http://moonsighting.com/how-we.html
For others, they mostly use one of the standard methods, either Muslim World League or Umm Al-Qura. There are some other methods too.

Because all these websites depend on mathematical calculations, it is not easy to which is more accurate for each location. The time changes with location as well as latitude. Most of them take both these parameters into account but you can still not be 100% sure whether the calculation is 100% right.

The best method to find out which is correct is to actually find out the prayer times by observing the sun.


To be on the safe side, for starting time of prayer, always use the last time and for end time of prayer, use the earliest time. That way you will be sure that you have prayed within the correct time period.
For example, if starting time for Fajr is mentioned as 5:07, 5:10 and 5:12 on different sites, then choose 5:12 as that is the last time starting. And for end time of Fajr (sunrise) if they say it is at 6:36, 6:38 and 6:42 then choose 6:36 as the end time and pray within 5:12 to 6:36.


Whenever you pray at the Masjid, then simply follow the time of the Masjid itself, as long as they not extremely off time limits.

 

[AabiruSabeel]

So, it's safe to go as long as I do not go to that other sites main pages?

It looks more like advertising than malware. But it is annoying.

Since geoloc1 is embedded inside moonsighting.com, it will always trigger whenever you go there for checking prayer times. I don't say it is 100% safe. It might be better to contact moonsighting and inform them about it.