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
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Oh, hey, a new source of redirects on iOS, guellu.com.
What's precedent ever done for us?
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Adding more to the list - wegotmedia.co, trck.global, mobile.trcking.online, offers.rulevely.com.
edited 3rd Mar '17 2:52:11 AM by Iaculus
What's precedent ever done for us?
How sweet it is
No matter how many reports I send, I am still seeing ads that autoplay video, and they bog down my laptop.
Offenders at the moment are euronews and ChinaNonStop/Wibbitz. The latter could be paused just fine. The former now has the tendency to open a new tab when I hit pause, making it more irritating.
edited 6th Mar '17 8:18:54 PM by Berrenta
she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
Jer gets all the girls
Getting redirects to click.mobilemedia or something like that. Making it almost impossible to use the site.
Sure the show's stupid but it's bright, fun, and you see grown men get punched in the face multiple times an episode. What's not to like?
Started to get redirects to uber on the play store on my android phone today. Not to the point that the site is unusable but far too frequently to ignore.
Chaotic Greedy
I'm plagued by redirecting/clickjacking ads these last few days, including on the very page for posting to this thread!
Got one on the US Politics thread, first in the chain (according to my history) is this:
hxxps://ads.gold/c/ba75626f-4458-11e6-8ce4-067217849073?transaction_id=6bc706ecb-07b1-9074-42a1cd2c06481fdf9f498d1e3a534263e904ba636550028&pubid=30014
Also, the redirects/clickjacks seem to happen whenever I try to click a link or textbox "too soon", before the page is completely loaded (Android browser).
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
Chaotic Greedy
And there's more:
hxxp://charteko.com/get/iad/1-4599-c5f5d4670e73b4ff32162f1c9a06513e?cl=WW_MS&af=kok_10246&subid=0ea96119-8e4b-4952-8416-f447902f6a6d
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
The Unknown
I got a forced redirect to some Time Warner Cable thing a couple times on mobile (iPhone). One of the times was in the edit window, oddly, and it just opened a new tab.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
I also got a forced redirect from the forums to http://great.android-offers.com/?utm_campaign=premium_android_CA&utm_medium=3699847cee351ade2bdd6fd1b295f988c7441171&cid=eyJpIjogIkE2QzI5OTExLTIzQkQtNDg2RS04NEJDLUU0RDE4RjAzNkRFOCJ9
I'm on a phone.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Ditto. That's the first redirect I've gotten too.
Chaotic Greedy
Got redirected from a webcomic thread, to there:
hxxps://mobyetrafmsmt.com/c/e8330819-99a6-11e5-b565-02f6361de079?transaction_id=11696ddd8-3b33-26b4-c113174fa758667dbb869d4341ac87cb8ea032230830027&pubid=30014
This time the redirect/clickjacking happened a few seconds after the page was loaded. And it attempted the same thing on this thread's "add post" page, but this time I was able to tap "stop" in time.
I really think this thread should have a special rule "no ads whatsoever on the Add Post page" to avoid stuff like this...
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
The Unknown
Supporting this. I also think there should be no adds when any edit window is open because I've had severe lag that's prevented me from typing anything or had the page hijacked, losing progress.
edited 15th Mar '17 12:01:24 AM by Karxrida
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
Chaotic Greedy
I can confirm this last one isn't clickjacking, because it happened again on the xkcd theead, and I didn't even try to scroll this time. I just tried to redirect me five seconds after the page stopped loading (because I had tapped Stop as soon as the page's useful content was visible — you'd do that too if you had redirecting ads and a limited data plan) but I was waiting for it with my finger over the Stop button.
edited 14th Mar '17 11:55:38 PM by Medinoc
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
Chaotic Greedy
Worth noting too that the redirect appears to be done in two steps, and in the first steps Android browser still shows TV Tropes in the address bar. Which makes it an obvious sandbox-circumventing measure, showing how malicious this ad provider is.
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
Sandbox? What does this have to do with sandboxes as we define them? Or is that a hacking/security term?
Chaotic Greedy
I meant it in the computer security sense, but "sandbox" might have been the wrong term here. "anti-redirect code" would probably have been a better term (though I'd definitely agree that HTML clearly needs a sandbox system for ads).
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
Kay. Still don't entirely get it, but what's Google for? Lol
Chaotic Greedy
Got more of these delayed redirects, this time to polimerk.com, and it's making the forum completely unusable from a smartphone:
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
Chaotic Greedy
And another delayed redirect:
hxxp://meladelis.com/04r59/YK Tx/dKez/Ybag/Iu_1eawwkqxVOeACHuYf7WzV1ms5jN92XXMrhXQ0gj5iK6JVIuYP/Jvqk K K0wjv 4 Abb QHROY Duu Gw Cm Dl Y Ia Hlcjxd F 5 Iw B 9 Uu Q/Iw
Redirecting ads are particularly fiendish since "report ad" can't work on them by definition.
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
I've gotten the same redirect 3 separate times (a Google-spoofing page that tells me that I have a virus on my phone.)
The Unknown
I've gotten two of those bottom bar ads on mobile (the ones that are always on the bottom part of your screen regardless of where you are on a page) at once a coupe times.
They're not negatively affecting anything, just thought I should report it.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
Just got redirected on my mobile from a forum thread to http://explobiz.com/nlp/index.php?offer_id=9659&aff_id=2173&aff_sub=028d15mj2syg594e&url=http://tracking.buxbunny.com/aff_c
I just got redirected to a fake virus warning page.
https://adclick.g.doubleclick.net/pcs/click?xai=AKAOjsvs6_7vMHbcQa1cWQb_v0m9aXnTIToci7PRDU9Y9HaFFI03c7GnkPHNtxMfb00QO3p2MFDkKSas_AVN8_xW_YfoVlMTCphTzMiXHuI3pEvpGWExGqU6SYrktr9pTjXgVFVGP9Ne5s8BzcHCtCVv4Eh-zXd8ukYw96HEsihGDOZ6dd35Dll6sgCgIYbgZ_SWjxEwGWJVCWY4JkDpVmoJ1IvTmqh4Q7BwgfWaBZnxKMaOjn5_h-WHOZ84MM0MgbJEaBu7hSRuS_uBYoe9Lbf4khTBEgKajF9HsuTMcsnkcjhnXPK1fL9OHR-THBKnpT_fwzHLHQXnXnX05vvWTILj-YEd94kwNCJmnTjBw2uZZuHIQlK6UqX9Abp6v1aYERYyAjY71u5LSFSswY-doMwhO544ACUPo_KPcaqMlnrsX02KYtIDR5zSbeHGYhVvsxV4UsDCCiJO9Dj7OoyAMxjx3ptzV69pVu1sHoBkY0h6XWWDwlUXbJwwUrwPBuWXIE9JR5G1QBLTIU9uWMjLu5dTitQq-NqpJlmG_XNHG54KFQBWKTuW42CREXJvnscfDansbFqVD5RsYx5A2yZMmAvOnTKC60g1Z5Z9rrasvnINTUkNMwqxX-f3_3KPZP3keTLVG685dkzh0cSAh8vm34Z3NZxq1SjKXAo-RUAFvnlKEsJA1VuAmpHXUu0GuyfkEaNI_Kw36pwWOF74aYO6ocJkyNpC0vPprm1u303hI6DejmWWYqxqiKTQybQ1Pgn7ghFFmiXRGqh3GB2jBrb8Xcdp4xYvJLsy91lI9bxa5w&sig=Cg0ArKJSzEfZXGsA-8Iw&urlfix=1&adurl=http://czechdesignweek.cz/en/%3Futm_source%3DSpring2017%26utm_campaign%3Dneo%26utm_medium%3DENGbanner
Autoplays sound and video.
It would be lovely to be able to actually use the site on iPhones without half a dozen redirects to the app store every time I try and load a single page...