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
Hyaa!
Yeah, thats been driving me nuts too.
...I take it back, I'm killing it. But I've seen it on 5 pages in the forums now, so I'm sure I can pull it up again if need be.
State of Mind
Getting Upbeat Entertainment News videos blaring at me too.
"What a century this week has been." - Seung Min Kim
Still just awesome like that
I seem to be almost never encountering ads on the top or left of the forum.
EDIT: Now not even the bottom one is showing up.
EDEDIT: It appears that only one ad is appearing at a time on each page for me in a random spot on the page our of the three possible spots. Or sometimes just none appear at all.
edited 27th Jan '15 12:42:33 AM by Odd1
Insert witty 'n clever quip here.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
What country are you in and what device are you using?
Shit.
While uploading an image, I got redirected to a full-page ad with one of those "You will be redirected back to your page in 30 seconds" messages, only no ad ever came up and I did not get redirected back. I copied the URL, but then I idiotically copied something over it before posting here. My bad.
Still just awesome like that
In the U.S. (New Jersey if that matters at all), using Chrome on a Samsung Galaxy S5.
Always 3:00am in the Filth
Hmmm...my Toutube history has been completely hijacked by Upbeat Entertainment News, like a dozen videos I never watched—unless it's the ads here on TV Tropes that are getting "played". I just switched to Chrome after reformatting my computer, so I wasn't sure if it's the browser or some new stupid thing Youtube was doing.
"But don't give up hope. Everyone is cured sooner or later. In the end we shall shoot you." - O'Brien, 1984
I've been working on blocks for Upbeat Entertainment and that shitty Reel>Feed player. They went into effect on Wednesday, and since then I haven't seen any - let me know if you still see them.
I'm not sure what video it was since I had the audio disabled and I was ignoring it, but I was on the forums last night on my tablet and there was a video playing at the bottom, which was causing the whole page to lag and hiccup even after fully loading, presumably due to the drain on whatever resources were being used, maybe bandwidth. It didn't look like the Upbeat Entertainment nonsense.
Glad to hear that I shouldn't be seeing those particular videos anymore, though.
Amusingly, I haven't been seeing any videos on my work computer, probably due to the same issues that prevent me seeing js-dependent images—which is a hilariously positive side effect of an otherwise problematic issue. :p
edited 30th Jan '15 12:02:13 PM by SolipSchism
I've had the Youtube history problem before, too, with other ad channels, so this is nothing new. It doesn't make it any less annoying, though.
I've posted this over in the redesign bugs thread as well since I never experienced this before the redesign: I'm now seeing "AnyClip" videos that are severely impacting performance of the forums. I haven't seen them on the wiki proper so far, only on the forums. This has nothing to do with my javascript-borked work computer—I've been experiencing it on every single machine I use to access the site. Even on higher-end devices with broadband internet, these autoplaying videos cause the site to lag and stutter and freeze, sometimes for minutes at a time.
I use a flash blocker to prevent the videos on my computer.
But it really hurts my phone that can't flash block and is impacted by the videos plus eating my bandwidth allotment.
I've tried to install Ad Block to deal with it at least until those particular ads are excised, but unfortunately ABP isn't compatible with the current version of Pale Moon. :/
Worth noting that it's no longer an intermittent issue. I'm seeing them on virtually every page in the forums. As I type this, I'm watching a... Fashion One... Something in cursive font that looks like "Stylosity" or "Stylocrity"... video.
EDIT: And now I'm seeing the autoplay stuff on most pages on the main wiki as well.
This problem seems to be getting much worse, not better. Is this being addressed?
edited 5th Feb '15 10:38:17 AM by SolipSchism
Hyaa!
I just got a "TV Tropes would like to know your location" popup.
That's strange. We don't have any code that would trigger the request. What page were you on?
Hyaa!
I don't remember the page, but it was on the forums, probably on-topic or Yack fest.
Most likely a rogue ad making the request. I will keep an eye out for these.
Yeah, ads pretending to be fake system warnings are common. Wouldn't be surprised if they spoofed TV Tropes as well.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Oh my Lord. I got AdBlock to work (had to install an alternative build of it due to being incompatible with Pale Moon, an alternative build of Firefox) and those christing AnyClip videos are gone, and there are no more autoplaying videos, and the site no longer stutters and freezes for minutes at a time. For the first time since the redesign, the forums and the wiki proper are both responsive, fast-loading, functional, and free of intrusive, bandwidth- and processor-hogging autoplay ads. This is pure, fast-browsing bliss.
For what it's worth, I did a quick Google search and found that AnyClip ads are causing problems on numerous sites, not just here. I strongly suggest finding a way to make sure they're not shown here, because if I'm not mistaken, doesn't TV Tropes have a policy forbidding autoplaying video/audio ads?
In any case, I'll keep an eye on this thread, as well as the BUGS BUGS BUGS and New Design Discussion threads, just in case these AnyClip ads are dealt with, so I can disable AdBlock. For the time being, though, I need the site to work, so AdBlock it is.
edited 7th Feb '15 9:13:35 AM by SolipSchism
Flo
I'm on iPhone using the safari browser and every time I try to browse tvtropes I keep getting redirected to this link http://200978-14836.deal-deals.net
which then redirects me to this page (I'm assuming is a phishing scam) http://200978-14836.deal-deals.net
I also keep getting redirected to the App Store for the drafts king app?? It kinda makes it impossible to browse tvtropes on mobile and I have no access to a PC at the moment. I was barely able to even post this.
edited 11th Feb '15 2:12:27 PM by ShadowedLove97
The way of love is paved by shadows.~ And thorns. Lots of thorns.
These are the voyages...
Was forced to reenable Ad Block due to site slowdown. Firefox 31.4, one tab.
Be careful what you wish for, 'cause you might just get it all...
Any particular ad that was causing the slowdown?
I don't even think this is an "ad", per se, but I was on the forums and started hearing an "Upbeat Entertainment News" playing. Scrolled to the bottom of the page and it was a video playing. Unfortunately I'm not sure how to pull the link, but as mentioned, it was "Upbeat Entertainment News". It appears to be playing via You Tube.
It looks like other folks are reporting similar things, so I assume this is a new issue. I'll try to leave the page open in case there's more info someone can tell me how to get on it. I'm dicking around combing through the page source, but I'm not sure what to look for. There are quite a few "a href" tags, most of which seem to be internal to the wiki and harmless.
EDIT: After I posted this, the same thing started playing on this page.
edited 26th Jan '15 1:39:46 PM by SolipSchism