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.
Edited by kory on Nov 15th 2023 at 10:36:27 AM
A fake scaremongering Facebook ad:
I can't figure out a h*cking thing on mobile, but I gather that the fake Amazon giveaway redirect ads are a known quantity, so for a data point I just got one
redirected from Hypocritical Heartwarming to http://coupon234210316.review/amazon/?s1=pub-amb16_
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.Desktop this time. When on another tab, one tab that had a post being worked on redirected to this site that flagged a security alert.
https://maweeekjeeeke.info/4/?c5abbcbfdd71970ftfn1d5abbcbfdd71cc=(866)%20387-5141
she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope ReportA page I wasn't on got redirected on my desktop, though thankfully it wasn't one I was using. Something about Windows security.
edited 28th Mar '18 4:11:03 PM by Crossover-Enthusiast
Jawbreakers on sale for 99¢Another fake mobile virus redirected me from my attempt to edit Artemis Fowl.
typing on mobile is enough of a damn pain without malware pulling me away suddenly and destroying all my work, grumble mutter gripe...
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.Just recently got the fake Google virus pop up as I was browsing the site on mobile. Good thing I checked this page.
Worth noting that clearing my history as well as keeping pages from fully loading seems to have cut it out for now...
Ask your parents for permission before you go home and be a family man.Getting constant iTunes redirects asking me to install 8-Ball Pool.
pearlina brainrot affects millions of people worldwide. if you or a loved one are suffering from pearlina brainrot, call 1-800-GAY-NERDSGot an oversized Quaker ad on mobile jist now.
she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope ReportRecently the site has become unusable on Android. Every single page gets a minimum of two blocked popups, and sometimes a third one fails to be caught, and redirects to either a "WARNING YOU HAVE SIX VIRUS" or a "CONGRATS YOU ARE WIN AMAZON MONEY" blatantly obvious scam site. This doesn't happen anywhere except on wikis, like wikia sites and tvtropes. This is happening from all pages, including the threads and the trope pages. Please stop allowing pop-up ads, and please stop allowing any automatic redirects. Thank you.
Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for youMy mobile browser software was able to block an automatic redirect from sending me over completely, but it still changed tabs.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.Appsflyer is redirecting me to apps and attempts to open the App Store as well.
https://app.appsflyer.com/id806904019?pid=applift_int&clickid=102682e10614688e75ed94533f4061&idfa=null&af_siteid=23121&c=Bubble+Cloud+%28iOS%2C+Free%2C+US%2C+67MB%2C+w%2Fcapping%2C+NRB%29&af_sub2=35_&af_cost_model=CPI&af_cost_currency=USD&af_cost_value=3&af_sub1=47297&af_c_id=47297
Another!
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.http://m43p.callitagain.com/click
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.I run, as well as participate in, forum RPs on this site, and I tend to keep at least a tab up with the thread watchlist on my phone so I can tell if someone's posted in said RPs. However, with the Four Virus browser hijacker constantly redirecting my TVT tabs, that's no longer a viable strategy, as clearing all my temporary files because of a bad ad is becoming more of a hassle than it's worth. As I didn't install anything questionable, and it only happens on the TVT forum tabs, it seems the problem is likely an ad on the site, though I don't know which.
edited 3rd Apr '18 6:54:34 AM by Aquatica1000
Another iPhone scam.
http://congratulations.prize-arrive.xyz/click/71137138/index.html?syn=240&ver=27&cc=US&td=open.trustclick.pro&ep2=1&sr=1&model=iPhone&brand=Apple&city=Atlanta&salt=JgDZ9gG&voluumdata=deprecated&eda=deprecated&cep=V8xczFMAErqYvEgGKO47cL_Q6o-MxKnjwQBXtMZIDYbEdLvaZWH2p4FLsP8vRYl9R1h2LmUVHaN7aBwsaA3U7Kxwv_Oo8rqhAhBc7i6mGEhAUJC8HwDFT3ZmSV9gpwTCID8zRBVjgzpJTV-AXM0XZXFNRGrUvUzIDGH0KDzBKJlWW8b9dT2RngtQIJvJ-YWvtqCnrno4-FD9qPjJdT6--y2ajvBHZYKAeJDhx6Tly_xe6z_SV7-86dYd3zo74IXRV0EBnhch2vOxGrs1sGUnRmckrtm1K9Au7CNbbtsure0&site=150epvb0tvtropes.org&clickid=1522869794mb25267481556&n=10#
Edit: Came back today: http://congratulations.prize-arrive.xyz/click/71137138/index.html?syn=240&ver=27&cc=US&td=open.trustclick.pro&ep2=1&sr=1&model=iPhone&brand=Apple&city=Atlanta&salt=JgDZ9gG&voluumdata=deprecated&eda=deprecated&cep=piDtFNlGzwoF15YC3-ryFzhCrANuZA0HZj0ConDPBBw45NigPUh6OvpAE4HRKCVw_r9mSfeH0tD_oQs6ThMXj8KKXgQJwFIjeE0mJmgUB2zQdcBw_Nf9wzF2u7RxyPeCjd_LDJnQeQQz3xRZdZXgxByg2mi3uHKjJX_9mya1dImfRydsqQ5i3oVbT1mR6o4PSNV15riYJrsHdyAgML5f-BPVgJKTXjJgPDf7-0T1dVcN78FzND8PwCiN8orRHCAcGWbPO0YQfuTRVOj_5TYLloyMIhSgOVku-fD7vOzEsDo&site=150epvb0tvtropes.org&clickid=1522957820mb11232919959&n=10#
edited 5th Apr '18 12:51:56 PM by BF10
Third time in a row with this scam. It’s still not blocked:
http://congratulations.prize-arrive.xyz/click/71137138/index.html?syn=240&ver=27&cc=US&td=open.trustclick.pro&ep2=1&sr=1&model=iPhone&brand=Apple&city=Atlanta&salt=JgDZ9gG&voluumdata=deprecated&eda=deprecated&cep=OrtLXingkS8MZSld3MBVnUK3UL4lAlx8SyO4vZ7l0KXux9s6LR4-QMiV_TNK7OXufXnkjgZOri77ktRG0gXGw3uP1_bnnVsnC-XQs6HvmBAiwhq3Wm2uwm5m7X8PGrwuDzkeVDxNaiPcmIqNJwv5GPcdbbIiWDy6NEsk_AvcTDphfA_aS07rQjvOR1UtZUJQas-VeK9xbwbiN_lIdHOVzdkyQDmFY6mvYZaNVtOQYgOr7MySoiuLTi4YcmygANlZxZa6Wt2WvwDcLS6FAShgcPAQYnRgMmana9094A00lns&site=150epvb0tvtropes.org&clickid=1523014414mb49875346360&n=10#
Also getting those a lot.
"It's just a show; I should really just relax"It let up for a while on my end but the Google virus scams are back:
edited 9th Apr '18 11:06:24 PM by PPPSSC
This one came back:
http://congratulations.prize-garner.xyz/click/71137138/index.html?syn=240&ver=27&cc=US&td=open.trustclick.pro&ep2=1&sr=1&model=iPhone&brand=Apple&city=Atlanta&salt=JgDZ9gG&voluumdata=deprecated&eda=deprecated&cep=UiZMxA99gHCxz0hPZ3nf9-yi9qUAqq-pKaqBQWT5Vx2Fj46bvTWZxOeXnoJt_9sVjtGmD_FXpPplqmg9m8ux4d_Y6mJAamHgvb9zAdJjU24mUrd8JgMPiFPtGXEO-Z2J_XjF7BL38ZQGtaZVkv3OM6IcXevMcsjNdYW7fLT9lPbkeTtjKPd4NgFz1dKicxOU8EsUaRoMmJtsjTfPYzT2kG008X-y8KMipeuPONtWdSi-bsKYbwk8ORoJFZm49Z-cH9OyXlcfuAVr9vs4VJkv0-5iFXA3Idi3BmyAJK3QFkw&site=d10epv46tvtropes-org&clickid=1523368076mb20804166285&n=10#
Yeah. This is still going... unlike past viruses, this one hits in the forums too, which is annoying!
I got this one while on the Trope Launch Pad, which wasn't even the tab I was currently on, yet it still re-directed me away from my other tab.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure PurenessOn my desktop, got redirected to this site. The antivirus blocked further progress, thankfully.
http://server3.time-to-relax.info/?a=AZ&pagex=0&s1=Vc9O8EcML6FWwQ4PDkOhfVOSAeKK3vfQgY2X-FmXD1bm93KbWhgYUMq4rL64foSjOOs_O6jpk_wiCYgFiDAVxA%2C%2C
There was more to that URL, but the part I retracted contained my IP address, my browser, and my ISP.
she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
Any word from the admins on whether this is being worked on?