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
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33634816@N03/7014361639/
Haaagh...the Mailbook ad...it IS misleading.
Nerdy. Weird. AWESOME.
(Not-A-Mod disclaimer)
General Tiu, please only use this thread for ads that are disruptive or contain viruses. Nothing can be done about "Misleading" ads.
edited 25th Mar '12 2:20:00 PM by VmKid
Hyperforce Go! http://vmkid.me/
Lost in Space
Here's an odd one. I am getting a Flash ad on Ask The Tropers, although I also saw it on the forum top, that displays a progress bar that says "Automatic Updates", with a moving progress bar and fake buttons to "Restart Now" or "Restart Later".
Analysis of the HTML reveals the frame source as follows:
iframe:
optimized-by.rubiconproject.com/a/8777/14415/29991-15.htmlscript:
www.burstnet.com/cgi-bin/ads/ad22802a.cgi/v=2.3S/sz=300x250A/NZ/759/RETURN-CODE/JS/script:
www.lijit.com/delivery/fp?u=GiantRealm&z=135962&ljt_giantid=0ReF0nPe1GK424Rg04OqnH2_3S02vc02vc&n=1
The Flash application itself is
content.yieldmanager.edgesuite.net/atoms/cf/97/43/01/cf9743010f1b57161045456e381e73f8.swf
There's lots of other material there, too much for me to easily copy/paste. And it breaks the forum width too.
edited 4th Apr '12 11:26:35 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Thanks. Will forward.
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
Happy New Year!
I'm not sure if this is the right place to report this but if you type 'tvtropes.com' as as opposed to 'tvtropes.org' into the adress bar this page appears.
Any reason for that?
hashtagsarestupid
Poachers sitting on the URL. They grabbed the .com name before we could.
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
Happy New Year!
dastards, still no big lost I guess : /
hashtagsarestupid
Yup. Just an annoyance.
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
I see the Awesomeness.
Try to always google search instead of trying to enter the actual website. It helps you steer clear most of the time.
Fight smart, not fair.
Not malware, but: So I have Firefox set to reopen the tabs I have open last time (as I do with all my browsers except IE which doesn't offer it so I have to do it manually using Tools > Restore Last Browsing Session). This time, I open Firefox and a short time after it's started loading the pages the following joins the tabs on one of my windows:
ib.adnxs.com/acb?member=316&width=300&height=250&pb=20&cb=1332563234&referrer=https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/main/citizenshipmarriage
This eventually redirects to some site shilling god-knows-what. It's an odd duck, as despite the "width" and "height" variables in the URL it's not a pop-up but simply becomes another tab on my tab bar, a new tab as opposed to hijacking the tab with Citizenship Marriage on it, nor has TV Tropes opened a pop-up ad before, and I didn't click on anything on the page, or even make the Citizenship Marriage tab active.
link edited to keep someone from clicking by accident - Willbyr
edited 12th Apr '12 3:45:37 AM by Willbyr
Técnico Electromecánico
Please edit the link with some spaces, removing the http://, etc so it does not directly link to the page of the advertising so people do not press it by accident, etc.
edited 11th Apr '12 10:31:08 PM by Joaqs
Now and then I kept hearing ads on this site about Lysol spray and some sort of carpet cleaning product. Getting kind of annoying, as I typically listen to music while browsing.
edited 25th Apr '12 5:09:57 AM by EarlOfSandvich
I now go by Graf von Tirol.
I wouldn't say it's malicious, but this one ad from StubHub keeps freezing Google Chrome up and producing this message:
edited 21st May '12 7:01:37 PM by chihuahua0
reported
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
Hi
Crossposting, from TParadox:
I know TVT isn't directly responsible for the ads, and it wasn't inappropriate content, but I was looking for the right place to report an ad that may be undesirable, and couldn't find one, so I went here.
I got an ad with sound. One of those that say something like "Congratulations, you're a winner" when they load. I hadn't even known it was there, since it was below where I'd scrolled. It was flashing yellow with a smiley face, and similarly vague "you're a winner" text.
This may or may not be the kind of ad you'd want to report to Adsense. I know the most annoying ads pay the most, but ads with unbidden sound are even worse than popups, and I don't get the idea we're that badly off right now.
I got the same ad as above. Screenshot incoming if requested.
(Seems to be from a site called Local Promotions (dot) Info, or at least, that's the URL listed at the bottom of said ad.)
edited 22nd May '12 9:10:38 PM by DarkConfidant
reported. Plays by itself audio is the worst.
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
Think of the mooks!
Don't have a screenshot, but I've gotten an ad for adult novelties to appear a couple times today. I don't know if it's still in the queue or not (haven't seen it in the last hour or so), but I think, particularly with the more family-friendly guidelines we're shooting for, that we should request it not be shown here.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.
Wel, if anybody else sees it, get a screen cap. Hard to report it if we know nothing about it.
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
Think of the mooks!
No problem. By the way, what's the stance on ads for questionably legal services, such as ads for games that are almost certainly hacked or pirated?
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.
Not our job to police the internet, I think. Dudes who advertise their illegal activities have short-ish crime careers, anyway.
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
Think of the mooks!
Fair enough. As long as we don't get blowback from them being Too Dumb to Live, I'm fine with letting them basically put up billboards to get caught.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.
Nerdy. Weird. AWESOME.
Are you talking about those fake Minecraft ads? I severely hope Mojang knows about them.
Hyperforce Go! http://vmkid.me/
Hmm. There seems to be a new ad from Bed Defense (dot) com that's coming pretty close to some indecent exposure of a woman suffering from bedbug attacks. Seems at the very least something to be aware of.
Google Chrome.
"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer