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
Mikon :3
Somebody keeps trying to give me a new iPhone.
Link: http://www.best-iphone6s.com/new-iphone/Luckyusers/us/239/index80.php
Here
◊ are three more page stretching ads, the first two taken from December 2015, the last taken yesterday.
edited 13th Jan '16 12:00:49 PM by IndirectActiveTransport
There's something that's automatically redirecting me either to a random game on Google Play or an unavailable webpage. I'm on Android right now.
I got redirected to an illustration of a butt naked woman with a shaved crotch being held upside down...I rapidly hit "Backspace" so I can't tell you more... edit: except laptop, latest firefox version, Windows 8. I was in the process of editing Attitude Era's YMMV page so getting that image isn't so surprising in hindsight.
edited 23rd Jan '16 8:38:57 PM by IndirectActiveTransport
How sweet it is
I was randomly redirected to this url while browsing the forums:
she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
Sorcerer in training
On my iPhone: Candy Crush and other ads for iOS games are forcibly opening new tabs and trying to open the App Store. (I have that locked down re: permissions.) The redirect is to king.com and is really hard to back-arrow from; I have to "hold down" the back key and access the history. I'm using the Chrome app.
Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. -Terry Pratchett
Still just awesome like that
Wasn't able to grab the ad link, but I just got redirected to some site called "FuckSwipe" which seems definitely like it'd be advertised on a family-friendly website.
Insert witty 'n clever quip here.
I keep getting redirected to the following page, which tells me that my Chrome or Flash is out of date and I need to download an update from this site. My browser is indeed Chrome, but I'm only getting redirected on this site.
I copy pasted the link below.
http://freeupd.free247updatetoolnow.com/?tract=JnodhZsz5BXS-45a61mbdFRrQ8MrhzCclL5tHs-F-9I.&cid=P23P4545140565762498332&offerid=3592&v_id=7fvJVqpKZq71695hG1HAMwV8XSYeBtN0m9sfeFWapQU.
Mikon :3
Currently being bomarded with "free app" redirects on most TV Tropes pages I visit. Managed to get links for some.
http://mobtraffic.co/ws/56b36e1e1b579915439337
edited 4th Feb '16 7:34:05 AM by Morgikit
hey i dunno, why don't you tell me
OOPS WRONG THREAD
edited 4th Feb '16 10:31:07 AM by Knowlessman
i care but i'm restless, i'm here but i'm really gone, i'm wrong and i'm sorry, baby
How sweet it is
Got instantly redirected to some offer to get free apps:
http://dkpartner.com/ws/56b4923eaecf4793442189
While I was browsing, I had multiple tabs redirect to other websites (most of them saying I had an outdated Flash Player). I'm not sure which ads were responsible, but here are the sites I was redirected to:
- newupdate.groupforupdates.org
- checkupdate.advsnow.com
- update4soft.newvideolive.club
- secureopensoftware.com
- screenaddict.thewhizproducts.com
- muzikfury.thewhizmarketing.com
- gameon.thewhizmarketing.com
- readysoft.groupforfreeupdates.org
- om.forgeofempires.com
I ran Spybot to make sure it wasn't something on my end, and my computer came up clean.
I've seen this explicit porn ad. Like, showing an uncensored image of two people "getting it on," so to speak.
I tried to report it, but the report function doesn't seem to be working for me, so I'm telling you here.
Anyone else got a nasty surprise from this ad?
...
So it isn't just me? Thank goodness. I keep on seeing an extremely NSFW ad about an iphone app. I have seen it multiple times on several pages. I first saw it on the The Super Mario Bros. Super Show page then Carnivore Confusion then on several other pages. No amount of cookie deleting will stop it from appearing every several pages.
I tried reporting it but I don't think the button worked.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Same here. I first saw it on the Patema Inverted page a few days ago and tried to report it. Now it's at the bottom of the Nerds Are Sexy page, but the report function doesn't work. It just loads indefinitely.
So when I try to come to this site while on the Wii {What I'm stuck with for Internet half the time}, what I think is a Bootstrap.com Ad pops up and the site freezes my device. I don't know if the freezing is because of the new layout or that ad specifically, but it might be worth looking into.
edited 9th Feb '16 6:47:54 AM by marston
These are the voyages...
Just hit a "Malicious Website" block from one of the ad iFrames. iFrame HTML in the folder:
edited 9th Feb '16 8:05:43 AM by Ripsaw
Be careful what you wish for, 'cause you might just get it all...
These are the voyages...
There's a Yahoo! ad that tends to spawn in the bottom adbox that steals focus and yanks the page to the bottom. I've reported it twice using the built-in tool (who does that report to, by the way?).
Be careful what you wish for, 'cause you might just get it all...
The Guy in the Capsule
I've had something similar, only it involved something about 10 free images from Adobe and it's appeared in the sidebar ad box in addition to the bottom banner.
I guess I should be happy it's not pulling up the keyboard on me, since it's annoying enough as is. I'm just not sure if that's the kind of annoying that justifies a report...
Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer. — Unknown
In a bug report reply, Drewski said they're pulling Yahoo ads from the site, and to keep reporting them here. So yes, it is annoying enough.
I have adblocker on and still pages opened from the browser bookmarks will be restored at the position it was last closed (bottom most likely). This is a browser feature (in FF anyway) but I would also like to know how to turn this off for tv tropes.
edited 11th Feb '16 12:17:09 AM by eroock
hey i dunno, why don't you tell me
Wasn't sure whether to put this here or in the 1.3 thread, but are all the top horizontal banner ads supposed to have the same vertical length? I just saw one that was at least half again as tall and shoved everything down farther than normal when it finally got around to loading in.
i care but i'm restless, i'm here but i'm really gone, i'm wrong and i'm sorry, baby
The Unknown
I'm still getting that stupid king.com forced redirect in mobile that takes me to the App Store.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
Pretty flower
I keep getting this suspicious thing popping up in my history whenever I visit TV Tropes. A google search tells me that gslbeacon.lijit.com is a dangerous spyware tagged to ads.
edited 14th Feb '16 10:50:08 AM by Spirit
#IceBearForPresident
I was redirected again, this time from the last page of the Girl Genius thread. Once again, I never saw the banner itself, as i was already scrolled down to the last post when the redirect happened.
I wanted to post the destination URL here, but this very thread's "add post" page redirected me there (never saw the banner either):
hxxps://admin.appnext.com/Click Urlm.html?ida=ca465fc4-4702-44dd-b16c-ff93fca0680d&idi=17f5c803-d9e8-472b-a562-8a3309047ce7
(Once again, the hxxp obfuscation is my doing)
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."