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'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
Oh yeah, I've noticed that, too. I have Firefox set to ask me where I want to save anything to, that way I'm able to cancel any downloads I don't want.
I've been getting those fake Norton popups that are poorly disguised drive-by downloads of malware for the past few days, especially when I tried to watch a video. I had to hot boot the computer (shut it off using the switch) because I know if you click them off, it downloads itself. One of those times nearly crashed my computer. Until this is fixed, I'll have to use Ad Block just for TV Tropes or just stop using TV Tropes altogether.
Noscript is much better in my opinion. Just turn off basically every script except TV Tropes.org.
All I'm worried about is depriving the site of ad money to stay afloat, but I'm still seeing ads, just not the real annoying ones, so I think I'm good.
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
I'm getting a Duthie Power ad that's automatically playing audio. Happened on the forum pages.
The Scrappy of the Trope Pantheon, God of Thumps
I kept getting adware links whenever I stay on a page on this site for awhile. I get sent to a captcha or Yahoo (I just got adware attacked again... twice typing this). Admittedly, I felt this all started when I downloaded Adblocker and ended up deleting it off my computer almost immediately after but I can't be too sure. I have looked for solutions online but either it involves completely transforming my computer or investigating things that are invisible to me. I reseted my browser too and these adware attacks returned. It's ridiculous.
So I wanted to know if anybody has the same issues as I do and begging that the tech savvy people on solutions because I've exhausted everything.
Cross posted from the Bugs forum and it just happened again as I was typing. No Yahoo, I dont want to read you.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/Poirot triggered my AVG/Avast due to phishing. Can't even access the page to see what ad is on the page.
Just wanted to add that I've also been dealing with the fake anti-virus redirecting advert. I didn't even click on it, it just did it by itself. I think I found the link though.
powerpcsupport.com/mcafee-safe-browsing/?clkid=d984c3zuog5hq19c&lpkey=16f8740642b253b484&campid=13656&landid=167&tfsid=9&domain=trusted-instrument.xyz&language=en-GB&browser=Firefox&uclick=3zuog5hq&uclickhash=3zuog5hq-3zuog5hq-h9zwbl-fnm78n-b49zi4-q5k21z-17qqy9-ef744c
Not clear who the ad provider is, annoyingly, so I can't report it directly. But hopefully someone more tech savvy than me can do it.
Voice actor and artist with too much free time
There is a Hyundai ad that keeps playing audio by itself.
I keep getting this McDonald's ad that doesn't fit in the ad box. I got it again while trying to make this post. :|
CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors
Is there a way to get the Hyundai ads to stop auto-playing audio when they're supposed to be muted?
Edited by badtothebaritone on Feb 14th 2023 at 12:59:16 PM
I'm also getting the loud auto-playing Hyundai ads.
The fun part is that they're already ostensibly muted; the audio icon has the strikethrough and clicking it removes the strikethrough. So then you need to click it again to actually mute it.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
My firewall prevented an attack from the site at 15:28 GMT today. The adverts stopped working for some time, and couldn't report it to admin via this method.
Details: IPS Alert
Name: Malicious Domain Request 22
Attacking Computer: 2603:1020:c01:2::1a,443
Attacker URL: https://gpc.purebrowseraddonedge.com
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
“Purebrowseraddonedge”
That just sounds suspicious. I hate to sound aggressive, but where are the admins?
TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/contact.php ?
For about a week now, browsing TV Tropes keeps redirecting me to other websites after a couple seconds have passed. This doesn’t happen all the time, but with frightening regularity, maybe a 25% chance. These are usually online stores, but I also got a porn site at one point. This doesn’t seem to be the result of a virus on my end, since it happens on both my computer and my tablet, but I will do a virus scan tomorrow just to be safe.
I did manage to catch some of the redirection addresses before they sent me away, which include but are not limited to:
https://lookandfind.me/s/a?t=7&f=1&u=41ecaa9ae33de01f1e1a4b6551068474&m=track.mbdaffiliate.com&s1=623615384&s2=gamboge-scorpion&s3=zulu-pes-vzy8jqem54&s5=wc
https://www.coupplant.com/pct9/bC_COe32tW?i7c=mbHpMxtegqTvAB4SiNJlYDiF6K1HriKKwg5u5SvlKDqbYEDruprIwm%2FUy1a3hQPsvwW9ENwDmhtzYBiJW4UjSItTSv0pRd6JDkNrl3EwiRVI11kLGLGV1x4kd60TPXAelvVPQ8hd3UuAJ%2FAJIbs0xHD9mNlVcYjxkYo7o5O4STV6vyAN1YbB7APcO4s%3D&ps=40b9f1a1264f60e0fafdd43d894c637d
and most notably
https://clever-redirect.com/s/r6?s=623615384&s2=gamboge-scorpion&s3=zulu-pes-vzy8jqem54
My anti-virus also prevented some of these redirects that were in connection with reliablepcsearch.com, stating that it was infected with "URL: Techscam". I hope this can help get rid of it. Interestingly, this redirection was most aggressive while trying to fill out this form, almost as if trying its damndest to prevent me from posting this.
Anti-virus just blocked another redirect. peech2eecha.com, infected with "URL: Malvertising".
I also had an automatic redirect to a suspicious website happen when I went on the site a couple days ago. It luckily only happened once. Is there some kind of malware infestation?
Klonoa, Dream Traveller
I just got redirected to quebbsapone.xyz while on the TV Tropes forums. It's a website that, according to what I've learned from other sites, sends phishing notifications. I didn't allow notifications when I was redirected to the site.
Still hoping for Klonoa to get a new game... or a movie like this
Just got another automatic redirect yesterday while reading an ATT thread, sending me to what is likely a malware site. I closed the window immediately.
I'm not seeing any ads, and a banner keeps popping up asking to turn off my adblocker despite it already being disabled for this site. Not sure what else to do at this point.
I keep getting notifications from Malwarebytes about RTP detection of a website called h1r2njblb.puzztake.com which is blocked due to being compromised. I've only gotten these notifications when on TV Tropes, so I believe it's a TVT-specific issue.
Trimming the hedges, one trope at a time.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Weird, I got the "turn off ad block" banner despite having the ad free subscription. Like I do have an ad block installed (and can whitelist the site if it matters) but you'd think that the fact that I'm already paying to not have ads would mean that the site wouldn't even register my ad blocker.
Edited by WarJay77 on Mar 29th 2023 at 11:16:31 AM
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Ads like these aren't allowed, right? Censored or not, it's still obviously relying on Sex Sells to get clicks
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
I don’t have pictures because they were too difficult to take, but on mobile, in edit histories, ads are now breaking up the blocks of text that show changes, in a very intrusive way.
TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
(Crosspost from Bugs
)
Every so often while browsing TV Tropes on Firefox, a 0-byte .htm file with an 8-character base-64 name will be placed in my Downloads folder without asking me. The earliest of these is dated June 11, 2022:
Relationship status: you make my xp5_giligz36asgv04a4 xp2_8e1t2kgz0c452