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 always get pop-up block warnings, but I get them everywhere so I just ignore them.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Lost in Space
Chrome has been giving me malware warnings about "cm.netseer.com" this morning. It won't let me through to the ad in question.
Edit: Nothing in the past hour or so, thankfully. If it comes up again, I'll see if the "advanced" link lets me see the actual URL or script source.
edited 4th Feb '13 7:25:07 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
R.I.P 2 My Youth
Got the same notice myself. Don't recall exactly which page I was trying to access, unfortunately.
"Polite life will fill you full of cancer." - Iggy Pop "I've seen the future, brother, it is murder." -Leonard Cohen
Lost in Space
We've been seeing anecdotal reports that Chrome is reporting this bad ad on a lot of websites, not just ours.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
The Final ECW Champion
Okay, so for reference, how many ads are supposed to be on any given page? My virus protection has been occasionally blocking adstrips as "dangerous" with an innocent "view anyway?"(no) and I recently saw a bunch of ads on the homepage but now it is down to three.
Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack
3-4 ads show up for me regularly. There is usually one right-shifted ad on the home page.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Three ads. The homepage has different layout. As do the forum and "tool" pages like Recent Edits. You should not be getting contextual ads (highlights in text) anywhere on the wiki. Most likely cause of that: a virus in your browser.
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
The Final ECW Champion
Well, I seem to have gotten rid of the text adds but I was not sure if everything was fixed because there were still a bunch of adds(there are three on the forum as I type this) If four is not out of the ordinary I guess it is all fixed, thank you.
Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack
There is a new problem. I opened a TV tropes page and, simultaneously, a "survey" opened up saying that "TV trope" wanted me to complete it in order to get a prize. It claimed I was randomly chosen on this day to be a participant. It offered me a $500 gift card (or two other things, one of which was crossed out and the two left had a small quantity left) after a three question survey... that could be could probably be answered by a program that keeps track of IP addresses. Stupidly, I answered the three questions. Something like, "how often do you come on TV tropes", "what is your sex", and "will you come back" or something like that. Then it give the choices of prizes. I saved the page in my bookmarks, reported it in Ask The Tropers and here, and started a full system scan of my computer (damn thing gets wiped too damn often).
Lost in Space
If you can identify the underlying URL for the ad, either by examining the page source or using the element inspection tool (F12 in Chrome), then you can post it here. A link to a screenshot might also help. But without more details it would be impossible to identify the source.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
www.bonusprizes.net/index.php?source=trafficvance&keyword=Tvtropes.org
WARNING! May contain viruses, malware, Trojan's, bugs, glitches, etc. Do NOT open.
You would have to coach me through the process of getting a screenshot.
My computer has gone through 14% of my files (computers go slow when you always have at least ten tabs open and a time) and there is no infected files detected... Yet. I have a feeling that step of the process was inane and would only screw you over if you went further, but I would still exercise caution given how people can get...
edited 11th Feb '13 2:22:04 PM by Fighteer
Take away the http://, please, if we should not click the link.
I see the Awesomeness.
Hit ctrl+prntscreen on your key board. Open up mspaint (or equivalent) and hit ctrl+v. Save as.
Also, if you've got windows 7, there's a special widget you can search for named "snipping tool" which allows the same functionality but you can highlight and email.
edited 16th Feb '13 9:10:04 PM by Deboss
Fight smart, not fair.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
The Snipping Tool is also in Windows Vista.
I'll remember that for next time... Hopefully.
World's Toughest Milkman
This isn't security related as far as I can tell (on my Linux box), but it's definitely ad-related. If there's another thread I should have used, I apologize, but it wasn't obvious.
There is a very, um, ill-mannered ad coming up from Lesher Center for the Arts that refuses to be confined to its box, and instead covers up nearby content.
http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/aclk?sa=L&ai=CZKTqBhwtUfL_IIOklATiooGQAcXC18MDzdaYpkae8IGMPBABINjqtiBQyo-v4ARgycbNhsijoBnIAQLgAgCoAwHIA70EqgSjAU_Qoue_k2hiIvSor_0fSYd-mLgb19tGigDoPcmCORlXK0Mx2wEUjexmLU-kh2a42A5TanjEinKWqb14Tya-djwVSTpjDsq8Ltv3IRFzt8ZpjfGmkhUygBSG8vc6ud4GFV1FQNaMOk_kwGsOaFiom_nK3NxbfqD0OsnvmZBHe41-6PlIE-slbt1PmQNqE9G-gruynwwG6ACYkSitLe7vF5FJjajgBAGgBgKAB823oB8&num=1&sig=AOD64_1KtJBrX8lZ0yK8eBYcf3CNk4JZJA&client=ca-pub-6897902191714833&adurl=http://www.lesherartscenter.org/january-2013/%3Futm_source%3Dgoogle%26utm_medium%3Dcpc%26utm_term%3Dnone%26utm_campaign%3Dlesher-display&nm=3&nx=74&ny=28&mb=2
Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.
This is the proper topic for misbehaving ads.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I'm seeing a banner at the very top of wiki pages advertising for some Game of Thrones thing. Just want to make sure it's supposed to be there.
edited 28th Feb '13 9:35:46 PM by Discar
Yup. Not an ad, really. Just helping with the new season push because Game of Thrones!
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
So is the Game of Thrones thing supposed to be randomly appearing and disappearing? Because it's doing that.
No, the other one.
I got a noisy ad. A trumpet fanfare as soon as the ad loaded.
www.aldaniti.net:8080/imagenes/creatividades/20130304091939.swf?clickTag=http%3A%2F%2Ftrack.adform.net%2FC%2F%3Fbn%3D1526289%3Bbsqno%3D1%3Bli%3D1%3Bcset%3D18%7C18%7C23%7C750%7C100%7C24%7C9%7C18%7C0%7C3%7C7%7C0%7C0%3Bjs%3D1%3Brtbwp%3DA2384D297FFA2CE1%3Brtbpid%3D8%3Brtbinv%3D31%3Brtbr%3D4ce06e512c71048da2d38cbf18f87bcc937a985c_Rubicon%3Brtbcid%3DtKXVnpdiQJ-OumjfHhWbNV7P4RxknjQL0%3Brtbtpc%3DDE2ymkOTz9eqjtR_BzROQIdkmDme4YszbkZcc3Bu22xd813photc68N4iOtIBxgX0%3Brtburl%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Ftvtropes.org%2Fpmwiki%2Fposts.php%3Fdiscussion%3D1362244116047814000%26page%3D1%2310%3Bunloadid%3D5476377147578750731%3BOOBClickTrack%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbeacon.rubiconproject.com%2Fbeacon%2Ft%2Ffe92a71b-6cad-4122-8840-ac22277aa249%2F%3Bpdmn%3Doptimized-by.rubiconproject.com%3Badfibeg%3D0%3BCREFURL%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Foptimized-by.rubiconproject.com%2Fa%2F8777%2F14415%2F29991-2.html%3Fcb%3D0.08877911040283293%26tk_st%3D1%26p_screen_res%3D1920x1200%26p_pos%3Datf%26rp_s%3Dc%26rf%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Ftvtropes%3BC%3D1%3Bcpdir%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.aldaniti.net%2Fwingames%2Findex.php%3Fpk_campania%3DMTI5NDk%253Dk9x%26pk_creatividad%3DMTIwODE%253Dk9x%26partner_param%3D%5BpartnerID%5D
edited 4th Mar '13 11:37:53 AM by AnotherDuck
Check out my fanfiction!
I've been here for thirteen years and all I got
I keep getting unusual dating ads from some place called w.ads.eqads.com? Nothing really objectionable, but the massive amounts of skimpily-clad titties are a little startling, and considering they haven't shown up before today I'm wondering if it's something going on with the wiki (since I don't have any adware on my computer, or so I hope.)
My computer blocked a pop-up on the page history of Brick Joke. The domain name of the pop-up is ar.voicefive.com (not sure how to get the entire URL without actually opening it, which I don't want to do). The ads on the page are the FTD flower shop one (which I've seen before without problems), a DeVry University one, and a State Farm one.