We occasionally get reports of ads that trigger antivirus warnings or infect computers that are browsing the wiki. This FAQ is an attempt to consolidate all the information about such things into one thread. Please read the below before reporting any incidents.
This thread may also be used to report ads that violate our policies in other ways, such as being too "adult" or NSFW, automatically playing audio/video, etc.
REPORTING: try to get a screenshot of the console as well as this will help identify where it's coming from.
REDIRECTS: Its very tricky to get the first URL of a redirect trigger because they are designed to hide where it came from. So you need a redirect plug-in
active while the redirect happens so you can find the first URL, not the last. Where you were directed to doesn't help track down the source.
- TV Tropes, as a site, does not contain malware. We are a text-and-image wiki; viruses and malware cannot be uploaded to or embedded in the articles. As always, however, beware of any external link that you don't recognize, since we cannot automatically screen edits or posts for malicious links.
- 99.99% of the time, any suspected malware will be related to the wiki advertising.
- TV Tropes does not directly control the ads that are displayed. We use third-party ad providers and we determine things like the size and placement.
- We instruct our providers not to serve ads that redirect your browser, take control of the screen from you, forcibly scroll your screen, play audio without being clicked on, install malware, "pop up" or "pop over" your screen, or in any other way interfere with your browsing experience.
- We have custom software designed to detect ads that do these things and automatically block them.
- Malicious entities are constantly trying to sneak ads through the providers' networks in violation of these instructions. As providers have little incentive to proactively detect and block them, it's up to websites to report these sorts of problems.
- We rely on our users to report ads that get through these measures.
- Just because you see a particular ad doesn't mean everyone else sees it. Ads are customized by the ad providers to your location (by IP address), the content of the page you're viewing, and your browsing profile, which is tracking data accumulated by third parties over the course of all your internet browsing.
- Just because you get a malware warning or infection that seems related to an ad on TV Tropes does not necessarily mean that it is caused by one of our ads. Pre-existing malware on your computer can intercept ads and replace them with malicious ones.
- Ads containing malware, obviously.
- Misbehaving ads, such as ones that load a pop-up or pop-under, redirect your browser to another page, hijack your screen or automatically scroll it.
- "Adult" or NSFW ads. Scantily clad women alone may or may not qualify, depending on context, but we want this site to be work-safe.
- Ads that automatically play audio — that is, the audio starts without you clicking on the ad first. Video ads are acceptable.
- Note: Political content is not grounds for rejecting an ad. However, an ad that contains or implies hate speech, disinformation, or outright falsehoods may be objectionable enough to be blocked.
- First and foremost, maintain current, updated antivirus software, and keep your operating system and browser up to date with all patches offered by the software vendors. This includes Adobe Flash, Java, and other rich media plug-ins. Turn on your software's automatic updates if they are not already on and act immediately when prompted to install them.
- Never click on pop-ups purporting to have detected a virus, offering to "tune up" your PC, or otherwise inducing you to click on a link that you were not expecting. Any genuine message of this nature would come from your antivirus software and not from a web page.
- Be careful clicking on external links. These are identified with a small icon next to them. Example: Google. TV Tropes does not endorse or control the content of external links and you open them at your own risk.
- Never respond to any email or web page that asks for personal or financial information, including passwords, unless you have verified its identity. No reputable company will ever ask you for your password(s), other than to log in.
- You may choose to opt out of having tracking information collected by ad providers. This does not stop malware but helps you maintain your online privacy. See here for additional information.
- TV Tropes requests that you do not use ad blocking software while visiting us, as this site depends on advertising revenue to operate. If you do run an ad blocker, please add tvtropes.org to its exception list, or consider donating to the site to have certain ads removed.
- We (or the ad provider) place a "Report advertisement" link next to most advertising frames. Clicking on this will generate an automatic report and is the best way to do so. If you cannot click on this link or do not see it, continue for more advice.
- Try to identify the source URL of the suspect ad (see below). You can also use the target URL (if you are redirected), but note that this may be intentionally obfuscated by the ad provider to hide the source.
- Identify the ad provider. Some ads have a small area that links to the ad provider's page (like Google or AOL). In other cases, you can tell from the referral URL or you can look it up in a search.
- Go to the ad provider's contact/abuse page and fill out their form. Below are some links to common providers' abuse pages:
- Scan your computer for viruses. If your antivirus software will not operate (many malicious programs attempt to disable your antivirus software), you can download a scanning tool on a known clean system and run it on your infected machine from a read-only CD-R or flash drive.
- If you suspect that you've been tricked into divulging personal information to a phishing attempt or other fraud, change your passwords to affected sites immediately and contact your bank, credit card companies, and the credit bureaus to request a fraud alert.
- Please note that TV Tropes cannot assist you with the specifics of maintaining your computer. That's your responsibility. You may request general help in the appropriate forums, but please don't post new threads in the forums dedicated to wiki operation (Wiki Talk, Frequently Asked Questions, etc.).
- Sometimes, the wiki administration can get better results from the ad providers in dealing with malicious ads. If you can identify a malicious ad by referral URL, you can post the link in this thread, but please omit the "http" component so it doesn't create a hyperlink that someone might click on inadvertently.
- For image ads, right-clicking (or a long tap on mobile devices) should give you the option to view and copy the URL that clicking on it will send you to.
- For Flash, Java, or HTML 5.0 ads, it may be difficult to identify the source or the URL by right-clicking. In these cases, you need to view the page source to identify the ad so we can report it.
- In Internet Explorer, you can right-click in a blank or text area of any web page, and choose View Source from the context menu. Firefox also has this option. In Chrome, you can use the Inspect Element menu option, which interactively highlights the portion of the page whose code you are hovering over. You can use this to identify the ad frame and its source URL.
- For embedded ads, there will be a "frame" element with a "src" parameter. Drill down until you get to the lowest level. All we need to identify the ad is the "src" URL from that frame.
for more information or to discuss the service.
Edited by kory on Nov 15th 2023 at 10:36:27 AM
I'm getting a bunch of ads with auto sound, as well. It seems to also be slowing down my comp, since, you know, tabbed-browsing a Browser Narcotic will tend to give you half a dozen ads at once. Conservatively.
edited 6th Sep '14 11:44:36 AM by karstovich2
Weeaboo extraordinare
Yeah I know. They are not only annoying, but they are lagging my browser.
pee pee poo poo
Weeaboo extraordinare
And now something tried to redirect me to a site called "spyhost". Advertisements scare me sometimes.
edited 7th Sep '14 6:54:09 PM by supernintendo128
pee pee poo poo
Hi, just wanted to chime in that I'm getting autoplay video ads today too. Very annoying. Any possible way to get rid of them (besides using adblocker software, which I don't want to do because TVT would get no revenue, etc). Thanks mods!
Lost in Space
We aren't getting rid of the autoplay video. It's part of our ad deal. They shouldn't be playing audio without you at least clicking on them first, though.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
No, I meant that the videos started playing the audio as soon as the page loaded, without me clicking on the ad itself. EDIT to say: Ran a antivirus/malware check, I'm fine there.
edited 7th Sep '14 9:01:45 PM by lunalore
Weeaboo extraordinare
Well can you at least get rid of that stupid glitch where it autoplays the audio?
pee pee poo poo
Lost in Space
We cannot do a damn thing. We can, however, badger our providers to stop them.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
The worst ones seems to be #UNBLOCKER ads. They auto-play with sound and they seem to be the most resource hungry. The other ads it usually takes multiple tabs for the video ads to cause trouble. I have seen a hit to performance with just three tabs with unblocker ads playing.
Who watches the watchmen?
Weeaboo extraordinare
Seriously, there are several ads that tried to redirect me.
edited 9th Sep '14 7:08:45 AM by supernintendo128
pee pee poo poo
Has anyone else noticed lines of HTML and Javascript where the ads are supposed to be? Or is that just No Script acting up?
Lost in Space
Usually that's what happens when an ad provider submits buggy code.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Until further notice
I'm also encountering this problem with mt.moneyandroid.com while posting from my Android phone from the UK. Redirects me to an ad for a (likely fake) antiviral programme every few pages, makes posting nigh-impossible. Only occurs with TV Tropes, currently using Chrome, haven't tried other browsers.
I'm also having problems with auto-play videos that have sound. At least the volume is extremely low on most of those I get, but it's still annoying.
There appear to be advertisements that look like wiki words. The One Piece example on Scissors Cuts Rock for example. They are underlined and the font is larger than the rest of the words, so they do stick out, but that's still rather sneaky.
Worth noting that the advertisement shows up on the source code page as well.
That's a sign of adware/browser hijackers on your computer
edited 15th Sep '14 3:10:12 PM by Sixthhokage1
aww dammit.
The Guy in the Capsule
Yeah, ads on web pages can take many forms, but by definition, they require the page to be rendered if they are to display / work. Viewing a page's source explicitly doesn't render the page, so ads on the page can't display.
But source view tends to be treated as just another page internally by many browsers, so if you have, as mentioned, adware or malware, they can still display ads, since those are being handled locally (via browser code) instead of remotely (via html code). (Also, due to their nature, these kinds of ads don't earn the site any money.)
Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer. — Unknown
The Mod with the Migraine
Are we supposed to be getting banner ads from ashley madison dot com? Just saw it on the Women's Issues thread in OTC at 1405 PST. I thought they would be stopped by the whole no-sex-stuff rule.
That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw
Been getting pop-ups on my android from an ad for "Dolphin Browser." Don't have an exact URL, sadly.
Icon by Civvi the Civilian!
I've been getting tons of popups that fill up the entire screen on my iPad or iPhone. They even come up when I'm typing a post! They're really annoying but the only thing I can do is close them every time one comes up. Which is frequent. This wasn't happening last week, it's weird . Whenever one comes up it might ask me to 'rotate my device' if I'm holding it sideways. They're mostly for some amusement park. I checks the settings of my iPad and I have safari set to block pop ups, so this is especially troubling
edited 19th Sep '14 8:28:23 PM by Xopher001
The Beta Male
I keep getting forcibly redirected to shit. That's still a thing, but now it's a more insistent thing.
The Plum and Only
I'm also getting forcibly redirected, on Android it happens almost every single time I allow any page to fully load - and it's one of the scams that purports a virus.
The URL is thusly: http://uk.holstravel.com/topic/security/?geo=GB
and this
◊ is a capture of the screen it brings up, in case P Cs cannot access the page.
I am getting some really loud and long adds in the forum.
Sometimes, when I open a new thread the button add (a square add bellow all the posts, between the search bars and the license) starts to play a video of a band playing in some sort of show. In the video there is the word Itaú (a Brazilian bank) followed by something I can't quite read (it is tiny). The video goes on for quite a while.
That is the very first time I remember hearing sound from adds in this forum, so I believe this was not supposed to happen.
There are some video ads that have the sound on by default. It's really annoying.
pee pee poo poo