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
he/him | Image Pickin' regular
Seriously, get rid of these constant extremely obtrusive and resource-hogging "Let's Texas" AR ads before I boycott Texas forever.
Edited by rjd1922 on May 21st 2019 at 1:04:09 PM
Keet cleanup
Got a redirecting ad to http://walmart-1x.club. Backed out before it loaded.
Got another redirecting Wal-Mart ad, this time for http://walmart-mc.club on Ask The Tropers.
Sorry for the double post.
I got redirected five times in the span of a few minutes to a "YOU'RE WINNER !" Amazon scam. Coincidentally or not, I had spent the last few minutes before that actually browsing Amazon. Two on locked pages, two on edit banned and suspended, and one here.
The URL is something along the lines of either http://goodluckday.site or http://goodluckday.site/prize/luckyus-ad/lp2.php. Everything beyond that is sensitive information.
Edited by Crossover-Enthusiast on May 22nd 2019 at 2:44:31 PM
Jawbreakers on sale for 99¢
How sweet it is
Got this when trying to navigate the forums.
http://goodluckday.site/prize/luckyus-ad/lp2.php? (Note: personal location info removed)
Autoredirected to here, which redirects to more malicious sites. Which means more stuff to delete in my website data.
https://www.bestreviews.guide/marketing_homepage?utm_source=BRG-Domain-Display2-Domain&utm_medium=display&traffic=p
How sweet it is
Another uncloseable ad blocking part of the page, from Bombardier.
she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
Yeah first time posting on the forum. I disabled ublock on the site and I get redirected by "Congratulations you're a winner" scam site. Twice. Last thing I need is a crapstorm of malware damaging my smartphone. Nine years ago I was a lurker browsing tvtropes when I was infected with random malware. Even tried to tricked me into using rogue antispyware to destroy my old computer. Tv Tropes needs to fix this immediately.
Edited by xelldx on May 24th 2019 at 10:40:19 AM
Another redirect, this time for Wal-Mart on the Tropes Pantheon discussion thread: https://www.retailproductzone.com/reredirect.aspx?https%3A//www.surveyandshop.com/default.aspx%3FFlow%3DA8152254-23ED-8E07-6275-BA24A4108BD6892C355F%261%3D1%261%3D1%26isuserlookup%3DFalse%26reward%3Dwalmart1000sg%26o%3D208664%26SubAff%3D22101-309521-2196-464_202816_86790_walmart1000sp_BM%26AffSecID%3D%26EntranceVID%3DGyq-s33Vx%257COhxFg-9YfdQg2
I've been getting the same full-screen Bai ads as well. They appear on every new page I go to and are really disrupting browsing the site. There isn't even a way to report those ads to adsense!
Bai, I don't want to see those ads ever again (pun intended.)
Get heckin crabbed
Sorry, I don't have anything specific, but I was getting constant redirect ads on my phone, and only my phone. Is there some difference between the sites?
Writer, or something. And... a button? 🖲️
Only thing I know is that redirect will try to sneak in malware and turn your PC/tablet/smartphone into a burned out brick. Until tvtropes deals with this, I'm keeping my ublock up.
Short-Term Projects herald
On desktop, Ram has created pop-ups on other tabs, linking to here:
https://www.ramtrucks.com/lineup.incentives.html?app=incentives&bid=22625717&sid=5176228&pid=245401535&adid=443079905&cid=0&buytype=LF&TR=1&channel=display&dclid=CPvV4rLbtuICFeihswodzgoAYw
Contains 20% less fat than the leading value brand!
Swarm of Scarab Beatles
On mobile, just got redirected from Granny to the following fairly obvious scam 'ad': hxxp://congratulations.super-huge.xyz/click/20137289/index.html?syn=257&ver=224&cc=US&td=ssl.amigo-click.info&ep2=1&sr=1&model=Galaxy%20S7&brand=Samsung&city=Rensselaer&salt=gEo399N&cep=wiv1Wnv9SvX7gcjyUbory5Xvy9ygk2aQuEn9lgw5ImbLE_LkMVdItysoKl-K 7 P7lb X Tjfo-njGvzIGUI13c07jOMfeIqd8RK87hZwr0mMox_f7qEgnv0zUGbdWzyfXBPQYLaij1PDInjRksExGo-ASU Pn H Cy Yx J Vs 00 X Ybz Hz GU 20 A Ju 9 G4o IBQB Vk P Kjne R 8 Zhj8iqnupn 8 F 1 Q Ez Hvww Rk L Ga IS 9 QU We 0-4qv_2kOBw03CHqlM1E2EGqxMfzVl0lp8qFciMYckk7EHcCWM2afeqn9yqRSi02NdWZLoIOA-8KFd-dqOXWNaOGGLOuNFn&site=d10epv46tvtropes-org&clickid=1559020063mb25393456631&n=10&tb=1#
(HTTP changed to HXXP for security purposes)
Edited by RangerSix on May 27th 2019 at 1:15:46 PM
New Recruits Tend To Drown A Lot: A TFTD Liveblog
I'm Sad Frogerson.
Not Sherlock Holmes
Yeah, I got the Bai ads as well. Please remove them, they disrupt the mobile experience.
“Now! Let us engage in the art of deduction!”
Free phone scam that keeps popping up (twice while I was trying to post this). Auto-redirects with pop-ups that prevent you from closing the page. (I hate having to turn my ad-blocker off and these kinda of ads are the reason why.)
https://bglobalmetering.top/6b6f0026123ef1e826c6fba63ba41251/index.html? (IP info redacted)
now @ worldwidewoomy
Got redirected to moneysavingexpertbcurrentaccount.top/51c8b9b4a23587bb25cbd2f01fb03f9f/index.html?ip=2601%3A3cb%3A7f%3Aeb34%3A800c%3A63e5%3Ae6f3%3Abb2a&siteid=Yj Y 0 Mj M 3 MD Ew OD Ez O Tg 1 MTY 2 Mz Uj MTU 1 OT Uw MDY 5 MUA 0 Nzc 5 QF 82 OG Nh Nj Nk MG My OG Zh NT Az Yjhj OW Jk Nz U 2 Zj Rh ODY 5 OQ&trackid=201906021838131025 on the Funny / Luigi’s Mansion subpage...
[edit: ...and again as of making this edit and browsing this forum.
Edited by GalacticDriftwood on Jun 2nd 2019 at 11:42:59 AM
flag edit: nonbinary flag but Luigi
How sweet it is
Another one.
Also got it again as soon as I was going to report it!
she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
Same as ![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
:
Also this:
Edited by SatoshiBakura on Jun 2nd 2019 at 3:06:53 PM
now @ worldwidewoomy
Got this one too from just browsing this forum.
flag edit: nonbinary flag but Luigi
Musician/Composer
I got this also while I was browsing the forums and the main wiki in general.
He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.
Got a full-screen (not an autoredirect, but still covered the page) ad for Bai, an antioxidant product.
she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report