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
I got a video ad with sound that started autoplaying.
When I inspected the video, the URL for the video was: https://video.sekindo.com/uploads/video/r_new_york2_mini.mp4
The Unknown
On mobile, I've been seeing ads placed between work/trope descriptions and the trope list.
It's not strictly an issue, but I'm also not sure if that's supposed to happen so I'm reporting it.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
I've been consistently getting autoplay video ads on Video Games. Even worse, since I'm on mobile, it keeps scrolling down to the bottom of the page to force me to look at it, making me lose my place.
I can't wait for Flash ads as a medium to die forever.
I was redirected while trying to check my watched thread list.
http://www.improvemybrowser.com/pop/622c/addnewfeature.html?ept2=830db02e-bc1c-4e5f-9583-5574b479d2f5
Blapper of Water
There's a Nike "Vapor White Pack" ad that keeps forcing the page to scroll up to its position. It's one of the top corner ads (right above the "Follow TV Tropes" panel), and it's been playing for the last couple of days. Every time I scroll down while it's loading or playing the first part of the ad, it forces the page to its position, and the page scrolls down and up so quickly that it hurts to look at it.
This ad plays on Ask The Tropers, in the forums, and on "Related Pages" pages.
It does not auto-play audio, but I'm reporting it for misbehavior because an advertisement should not be messing with my browser like that.
This experience has happened on a Mac and a PC, and I've only been using Google Chrome.
Update: I didn't realize this before, but it also doesn't appear to stop loading.
The URL seems to be: http://media.dopfm.com/b92b890b-c7d6-4c30-b67f-11b66942b34f
edited 9th Aug '17 8:49:06 AM by WaterBlap
Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty
Been getting a top-of-page ad on mobile for Goldman Sachs starting this past Monday. It shows up very consistently for me on every page of the forums. It loads in after everything else on the page, including standard ads, and when it does, the standard banner ad disappears, and the page scrolls back up to the top so you have to look at it. It also messes up the three-bar or 'hamburger' menu button- if I want to navigate to someplace through that button, I have to hit the button and then the page I want to go as soon as the page loads, before that ad shows up. If I take too long on the menu or open it too late, the menu closes (if I took too long on it), the ad disappears and leaves a bunch of blank space above the header bar (the bar controlled by the Sticky Header display option), and then the entire page scroll-locks. I can still click on things, but I can't scroll. Very annoying. Here's a screenshot.
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Ace Gamer
I went to my watchlist and got ten new tabs leading to the Suntrust homepage with a referral code attached (I assume so it could steal my bank account if I had logged in). I had to enable Adblock just to get it to stop. I managed to get the URL of one of the tabs before it redirected: https://stats-tm.everesttech.net/stats/1/ct?sessId=vxb6KIn7Eeez7iIACp0Usg.1&paId=XLC951oWxGIeYbdTG9av&psId=H4pF6TX2fnNSZDPiBtqO&page_url=https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/awl.php&burl=https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-6897902191714833&output=html&h=250&slotname=3608036151&adk=2808755428&adf=3776310729&w=300&lmt=1503709998&ea=0&flash=26.0.0&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftvtropes.org%2Fpmwiki%2Fawl.php&wgl=1&dt=1503709942727&bpp=122&bdt=2203&fdt=123&idt=126&shv=r20170821&cbv=r20170110&saldr=sa&correlator=4912398751948&frm=23&ga_vid=1050879034.1501024542&ga_sid=1503709999&ga_hid=865011020&ga_fc=0&pv=1&iag=15&icsg=2&nhd=2&dssz=2&mdo=0&mso=0&u_tz=-240&u_his=8&u_java=0&u_h=864&u_w=1536&u_ah=824&u_aw=1536&u_cd=24&u_nplug=5&u_nmime=7&adx=1193&ady=1827&biw=1519&bih=758&isw=300&ish=250&ifk=981661973&eid=21060737%2C828064250%2C21060715&oid=3&rx=0&eae=2&fc=528&brdim=0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C1536%2C0%2C1536%2C824%2C300%2C250&vis=1&rsz=%7C%7CeEbr%7C&abl=CS&ppjl=f&pfx=0&fu=20&bc=1&ifi=1&dtd=56094&rurl=https://tvtropes.org&did=WXep1wAAAWS@rURE&didtype=EVEREST_COOKIE_ID&rt=HTML5&vinst=t&adEngClickThruQP=&cak=LeRQeD94sNDAkD0jRyYj&pai=1916204779&eew=37&eec=3&redir=https%3A%2F%2Fadclick.g.doubleclick.net%2Faclk%3Fsa%3Dl%26ai%3DCZJMmL8ugWZLEEZaXBZnLjdgGyN7wlEaugtuXUsCNtwEQASAAYMnewYfgo7QQggEXY2EtcHViLTY4OTc5MDIxOTE3MTQ4MzOgAZ7fyuoDyAEJqAMBqgSeAU_QO-Q6SrQZxUAtgWdJSiuGgHGllAacDR0e5qMgA5KQ3kwP6-Sx5rXptN1UpUJL2-iBnJeZRu6PmCLpEeyY3bQIS5uVP7CiRUyGXCoj-C_YhFHKdQmmPBjQNQB8K9nAcJoSxgPYd2hAmutf_C-y_Ad8JxhWoVOyzk255KVJ7Q3UYmVNYAO4SO7yJMlOzuvUn8ORSJjH1VDbM1OVJc2TgAar6YrYx-vH7lGgBiGoB6a-G9gHANIIBQiAIRAB%26num%3D1%26sig%3DAOD64_1xdHwucYU_6D_BlUmn8PSNJ9B1ew%26client%3Dca-pub-6897902191714833%26adurl%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.suntrust.com%252F
edited 25th Aug '17 6:20:44 PM by MissMokushiroku
The Unknown
I got a forced redirect to a "you've won a free iPhone" site or whatever while browsing the Fire Emblem Heroes thread.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
Another forced redirect, while browsing the Banned/Suspended thread. No clue what ad did it, but the url it sent me to was http://starrednow.com/show.php?c=walmart&p=e4a96aab2116ab5592e5b1718fe558de&subid=AA1266068197150412378636831&t=1504123786
Happened about 4:11 pm EDT, if that's any help.
I keep getting pages with ads that won't load that basically crash the tab, I can't scroll properly, stuff won't load and I can't even get the "report advertisement" button to work.
I'm viewing on iPad.
Blapper of Water
There's a "Pogo Cam" ad that seems to be forcing the browser to load it on all TV Tropes tabs at the same time. When this happens, all of the square ads at the right-hand side of the screen turn into PogoCam ads and the banner ad at the top disappears. It keeps slowing down my browser if I have two or more tabs open that go to TV Tropes.
I've had this happen on the forums and the wiki proper. My entire browser slows down, goes black, and the computer slows down, too. I can't do anything until something finishes loading. I'm not sure if it's the computer or the ad, though.
So far this has happened to me on Google Chrome on a PC.
Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty
I have been consistently getting full-screen ads for Vibe e-cigs on Pop-Culture Isolation.
Got another full-screen Vibe ad on this thread. It's one of those ads that slides in from the bottom, so I can't report it.
How sweet it is
Another automatic redirect, on my mobile device:
http://ingmatic.com/show.php?c=walmart&p=b7875f9424faa05df6163035a36aa052&subid=X12871578081506434143810821&t=1506434143&sid=9a831bbe9cdab1fc91311853c39266b2
she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
I'm on my iPad and keep getting ads that request that I rotate my devise.
Oh and I'm still getting massive slowdown occasionally from ads I can't even report due to how bad the slowdown is.
edited 27th Sep '17 12:29:20 PM by Silasw
I pretty much always get annoying autoplay video ads that... aren't even ads, just lists of places/things to do in various cities
I'm getting these autoplay videos from theTradeDesk (or adchoices or "proper") that show various locales such as San Francisco and state obvious places to visit in these locales. A lot of the times these ads show up, I eventually become unable to access the site because I get a "400 Bad Request: Request header or cookie too large" block, which requires me to clean my cookies to fix.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Do they say something like "Don't miss a duck in Hyde Park?"
edited 29th Sep '17 12:19:46 AM by jameygamer
How sweet it is
Another automatic redirect on mobile.
http://d3tqik8z2pb8cp.cloudfront.net/creative/c/3/?rdm=573799&m=1506862672&l=5737992_cox_ae9e3e57_21aea4cf3ad5729b8b33985c6bfe3248&platform=ios&adx=cox&clickid=2_cox_ae9e3e57_21aea4cf3ad5729b8b33985c6bfe3248&pubid=1cox_1694877010&ctype=4#
she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
The Unknown
While reading the forums, I had the site crash on my computer while using Chrom. This has never happened before on Chrom and my computer is in decent condition, so I'm pretty sure it was caused by an ad. The problem is I have no idea what ad.
edited 6th Oct '17 4:42:08 PM by Karxrida
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
The Unknown
Okay, I seriously think there's an ad running around that's eating up memory. I had several TV Tropes tabs crash at once even though my computer said my available memory was fine.
edited 8th Oct '17 12:30:14 PM by Karxrida
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
TV Tropes’s ads don’t seem to like my new iPhone 8... unlike my 5s, I keep getting forcefully redirected here:
http://us.crenelate153qn.xyz/pw85os/0_index0.php?model=iPhone&brand=Apple&osversion=IOS%2011.0&ip=66.87.64.167&voluumdata=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&a=1cox_1694877010&c=2_cox_c2880881_ecb2dc433eaa497bb59fa4f2fc2398b5
edited 8th Oct '17 10:03:31 PM by SuperFrost
Sorry for the double post, but here’s the more common if the forced mobile ads.
http://d2b79sriovaplt.cloudfront.net/creative/c/3/?rdm=382663&m=1507592742&l=3826632_cox_7e63a1db_4f11dff5c86c00507b104cceb99de45d&platform=ios&adx=cox&clickid=2_cox_7e63a1db_4f11dff5c86c00507b104cceb99de45d&pubid=1cox_208056818&ctype=2#
Yet another full-screen Vibe ad on Obscurity Pages 1. Although the ad has an "Expand" button on it, it seems like it'll expand to full screen even if you don't tap it (even on accident).
I keep getting the full screen “please rotate your devise” ads, I’m still reporting them but they’re not going away.
Got this redirect while browsing on Chrome on my PC: https://ads.chacomedia.com/click.php?key=ev9una8e537n4ozcxdyj&t1=4444444&t2=stream&t3=http%3A%2F%2Ftvtropes.org%2Fpmwiki%2Fpmwiki.php%2Fawesome%2Fthetencommandments&cost=usdcost
edited 6th Aug '17 5:07:00 PM by PilotSolaris