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
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Same with me.
We re-tooled our advertising partners on mobile, which will hopefully do away with the redirects and pop-ups. Fingers crossed.
I've noticed a definite improvement browsing on iPhone myself today.
Mikon :3
Awesome! Seems like it's worked so far.
Fake flash site. Though it's shown up a lot less often than others.
edited 19th Dec '14 5:47:04 AM by Chabal2
Directed here for an ad issue.
I've had this issue on another site, but one of the ads, for a supposed Forbes article on brain health at wan-tracker.com, automatically takes me to that site with no input from me (I'm on an iPad).
If it happens again, I'll get the full URL.
The mobile pop ups are back, the same 'you are a winner' site and ads forcing the apps store for stuff like Uber.
betaalpha
About an hour ago I went to the TV Tropes Forum page and was almost immediately redirected to this porn webcam site. Very adult.
bongacams.com/?bcs=cmljYWE2NDI3ZjhkZDU5OGïY 5 Zjc 0 Mm I 5 O Dc 3 ZDE 1 Z Ddi Yz Bh Ojox Nzgz NDY 6 Omh0d HA 6 Ly9sa X Zl LT Uz Ny5k YX Rlcm V 4 Lm Nvb S9y ZW Rpcm Vjd C5od G1s Ojpn R 0 JBRDE 0 MT Iy MD Aw Mj Uw MD Aw MD Ew Mjgy OT Aw Mj Fj Y 2 ZX Rj BUQ U4z M 2 Yw MDA 4 N Dk 3 MD Aw Mj Qz Ojo 6 Oj I 2 NT Ix N To 6 M Do 6 MA~~
I tend to get force-redirected to the site (or others) once every two days I access the site, but only while looking at the TV Tropes website, and only while I use my Android tablet or Android phone - my desktop P Cs don't have this issue (thankfully - one's the PC I use at work!) I've had redirects happen for months, but it's only been a week or so that they have sent me to porn sites.
Update - it happened a second time today, this time with my Android phone. The auto redirect was: live-538.daterex.com/redirect.html
And it took me to this porn site: pfi.ewank.com/?cz=M7z N Fy Cz ZD&visit_id=141908368603327600830&type=2
I think the page that contained the redirect was this one:https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Landlord
edited 20th Dec '14 6:05:08 AM by betaalpha
I am now a shiny stone~
I suspect these redirects are being caused by mobile browser ad exploits that target Chrome/Safari iOS, because I haven't been affected by them when using Firefox for Android.
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
Hmmm, come to think of it you might be right. I haven't accessed the Tropewiki with Mobile Safari for more than a year too. We might need to test different mobile browsers to see where the problem ads seem to target (IE for Windows Phone, Dolphin, Android Open Source Browser, and so on).
What version of Android/browser? If you're using the old Open Source Android Browser that is now considered obsolete and deprecated in favour for Chrome for Android, I suggest switching up on browsers. If you're using Dolphin for Android, try switching over to Chrome or Firefox for Android.
edited 20th Dec '14 6:40:30 AM by AceOfScarabs
The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!
Mmmm, I haven't had problems with Safari so far on iPhone.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I have been using Safari on the phone and getting those popups, Its only on the forums though.
Gotta say, the iPhone pop-ups and redirects have certainly gotten much better over the past week, but they haven't quite gone away completely. At least they've become an occasional thing, rather than happening literally every single time I reload a page.
I will add some more blocks today to try and stop the porn, fake flash, pop-ups and new redirects. This is starting to feel like a game of Whac-A-Mole.
edited 20th Dec '14 9:40:17 AM by drewski
betaalpha
Thanks Drewski and Ace Of Scarabs. The browser I use on both Android devices is Chrome, which I keep up to date. I'll let you know if more porn site redirects happen.
Forbes redirect Again on mobile Safari, this time from a new url: http://santetend.com/brains01/h-index.html?voluumdata=vid..00000000-94ae-4137-8000-000000000000__vpid..11f9d000-88b5-11e4-8166-f1fa7f808aad__caid..62ffcbeb-05b1-452c-b004-51aace448c9d__lid..e6c3ae89-0bee-43a1-8e1b-a9e249698ea7__rt..R__oid1..81138f5a-7d35-4102-88bb-3abc3bd1f19f
Still just awesome like that
Just a note to people, please remember to use the [/= =] (minus the slash on the first, such that this http://example.com becomes this http://example.com) tags around links in this thread so that if people accidentally click on the URLs they don't end up going to the rogue pages.
edited 26th Dec '14 8:51:44 PM by Odd1
Insert witty 'n clever quip here.
While on desktop, I've had 2 of the square ads at the bottoms of pages play a video with sound. One was a Home Depot ad, and the other...I can't recall at the moment, but I feel it important that I mention it nontheless
edited 28th Dec '14 8:06:25 AM by TheBob427
Auto-playing video ad with sound at the bottom of Lonely Piano Piece, looked to be about Guardians of the Galaxy. http://cdn1.anyclip.com/xER_mh2mJ.mp4
Auto-playing video ad with sound (again) at the bottom of Video Games. http://cdn1.anyclip.com/gAYztmYh242.mp4
I've put a block out on that domain. We have blanket blocks on the auto-playing video ads category, but sometimes ads slip through the provider's filters.
I got redirected to a site that said "You are currently browsing the web with Google Chrome and your Video Player might be outdated" and tries to get me to install software. The legalese includes a reference to NEWALLSOFT.COM which (according to Google) is pop-up malware.
Unfortunately, I don't know what ad redirected me, but here's where I got sent:
http://www.dowentaien.com/US/?dv1=265544&dv2=&dv3=&dv4=Adtic-US&sec_id=qWJ8vBQjIEzEzrekY9h6C9JuClKjCZO6Y3RmIaR0C3SRPAXrN2CnvnNRPBNa7BY0C3Cuva88NaO47kV0qZJ0fcC6qZYRFcCWiVHyfis%EB&marketing_fid=MTQyMDQyMjk4MC0xZjQxYWVkMWRjODYyODkyNWI0NDIwZjMxMDE5YzU1Mg==
edited 4th Jan '15 6:16:24 PM by LadyMomus
It's not exactly R-Rated, but I just saw a very risque IMVU ad with a CGI girl in a skimpy bikini in a suggestive pose. It was borderline SFW. I'll screenshot it if I see it again. Can I upload that to the site solely for the purposes of posting it here? I can't use other image-hosting sites from my work computer.
In addition to some of the redirects listed above, when I browse on iPhone I keep getting one that brings me to an App Store page for something called Lyft, completely hijacking the page I was trying to visit and replacing it with something from domain api-02.com. Sometimes hovering over the "stop" button on the browser and preventing the page from fully loading stops this ad from appearing, and sometimes it doesn't.
I appreciate the work of the staff in preventing these ads, but more and more I sense that this is a widespread problem that Apple needs to step up and put a stop to.