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
The Author
The Kroger ad hasn't been covering the whole page for me (yet), but I have had cases where duplicates pop up on the same page. It feels both funny and annoying.
The Author
I’m getting an ad that’s taking up the bottom of the screen. 
I'm having this ad show up at the bottom of my page too.
Edited by NKgamer on Mar 26th 2024 at 1:38:34 AM
I wanna be a cowboy, baby
caught the same ad as ![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
too:
Serial Cut Lister
Hey Kori, mhh, I don't want to be a dick, but I just got that Volkswagen add, and this time it was so big that I had troubles closing it:
As you can see in the upper left corner, (and this post's time) I got it just some minutes ago.
Companies can be very agressive when they try to sell you anything.
Edit: hol up, this is a Toyota add. My bad. I really hope that this isn't starting to be a trend between companies.
Edited by Braylovsky on Mar 29th 2024 at 7:52:06 AM
Yo soy el futuro, luwawanu mu sadila kisalasala kio.
Honestly they should know that "make the majority of your customers happy (within reason) and the profits will follow." The companies these days act so dumb, alienating their customers and scaring them off.
I wanna be a cowboy, baby
the FDIC ad apparently started covering links on-page, too:
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
On mobile; add is covering up a large portion of the top of the page and there's no removal option.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Good freakin' griefer
This ad from Zoosk has music automatically playing and loops after a few seconds.
I wanna be a cowboy, baby
is it just me or is the ad box REALLY throwing off scrolling? cause it looks like it's pushed even farther off like its trying to escape.
also the FDIC ad keeps returning to cover the bottom half of the page. it even appears in front of folders.
Stan GaruKaru for clear skin
Got redirected to yet another "Congrats, You Won" popup scam while on the Companion Cube page.
Why these exist are beyond me, and I wish these were made illegal.
Edited by MatthewThePrep on Mar 31st 2024 at 10:07:39 AM
A Pizza Hut ad that's showing up on the bottom of the page. I'm starting to think you should get rid of google ads altogether. They don't screen their ads and several ads are just fronts for viruses which would hurt your website.
The sleepiest good boi
The Author
I got this lovely ad that decided to hijack my entire screen. 
I wanna be a cowboy, baby
these weirdly elaborate bottom screen ads are mucking up folders again:
Dvandemon
I've been having a problem I'm going to try and summarize here
Long time user on mobile here. I've been having some problems lately(re: at least for the past year) that I think are related to ads.
I've tolerated when they would force any ad spot I scrolled over to center on the screen no matter what, completely speed bumping my scrolling to a specific section. I've tolerated when scrolling past an ad spot would fill up the entire screen and I'd have to wait for the X button to appear, which wouldn't always work, or it would never appear and I had to refresh the screen and hope that glitch didn't pop up again.
But I think what's happening now might be related and, if it is, is the most disruptive yet. I think the ads are preventing any buttons besides folders from working. I can open folders fine, but I can't click hyper links to pages or open footnotes. Sometimes I have to refresh a lot in the hopes that this time they will start working. I presume they're related to ads because I noticed a persistent Pizza Hut ad appearing at the bottom around the same time. One that's rather wonky with the page layout, appearing behind text and inherent widgets when I scroll.
Anyone else have these problems or at least know what's going on?
Edited by Dvandemon on Apr 14th 2024 at 12:46:07 PM
A lot of ads are instantly recentering the page to focus on them when they load and it makes scrolling annoying. Why isn't anything being done?
Sadly I can't, I don't even know what half of these ads are since the page focuses on the ads before it even loads.
Tyrannoraptoran Reptiliomorph
Similar to what many other people have been getting, I just got a huge La-Z-Boy ad:
Got a full-screen ad for Rust-Oleum spray at What Were They Selling Again?
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]")
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]")
I’ve been getting that Kroger ad, too.
Join the Five-Man Band cleanup project!