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
I'm having the same problem on my Windows phone as Hopey up there; a banner ad and pop-up forcibly redirecting me to this
◊.
So I have an interesting problem – whenever I try to load a new page on this site, it takes about twenty times longer to load than any other page anywhere on the entire internet does. Firefox helpfully informs me it is Connecting to, Reading and Transferring Data from sites which are distinctly not this one, such as ad4.liverail.com, tubemogul.com, ascalemedia? or something, anvil.rubiconproject.com, objects.tremormedia, s2c.open.liverail.com, rtb.adrail.arena, dtm.advetising.com, pixel.moatads.com, vox-static.liverail.com, tags.bluekai.com, t4.liverail.com, ad.turn.com, js.moatads.com, videohub.com (there was more to that one that I missed), ads.adapttv.advertising.com, soundwave.banana.com, apps.safescout.com, dashbida.com, match.runspd.com, rbt-altitude.arena.com, www.googletagservices.com (liverail.com is by far the worst offender), and various others ranging from unintelligible to fishy. Sorry for the miserable transcription, I only see them for a few seconds. The only explanation I can think of is that it has something to do with ads here. The UR Ls also seem indicative of such.
At the moment I have had to resort to Internet Explorer to get this site to work. Firefox is completely and totally broken. I cannot load a single page effectively after touching Tv Tropes. I cannot even typoe this post in brower, I'm copy-pasting just to make sure it's comprehensible. Will update as to how long it takes to go away. (Rebooted, Firefox can now load other pages.)
Strangely IE seems to work great. Seems I'm stuck with that for a little. . .
The problem with loading from other sites only occurs on this website, most often on the forums, and only in Firefox. My ping is fine. My connection is fine. I'm not multitasking. Physical memory usage steady as always.
Make good-Kraltan assist.
edited 11th Jun '15 12:20:30 PM by PixelatedVolume
I'm not sure this if it's due to the ads, but I just had a bug where all the texts jumps back to the left (in WL and CV) under the "Featured Backers" ad.
Another where the ad isn't malware (as far as I can tell), but it shows up at the top of the page and expands on its own, covering up the page links (related pages, page source...).
that rubiconproject one is (also?) behind the streaming video ads that more or less successfully try to keep their sound volume down. screenshot of inspect element tech bits
.
Edit: though to be honest, I've grown indifferent to it. It's a long story.
edited 16th Jun '15 11:15:08 AM by SetsunasaNiWa
Literally every page is now autolaunching the App Store on my iphone and trying to install the William Hill Betting App and forcing my browser to reload the previous page when I cancel out of it, including this page. I don't know why I'm bothering to post this as it's clear the site owners don't give a shit that their site is now pretty much a malware installation attack site that attempts to hijack users devices. Quite frankly I'm surprised the entire site hasn't been blacklisted.
I browse TV Tropes from Safari and iOS Chrome all the time, and don't get those redirects. The culprit may be your phone. What model (e.g. 5, 6, 6+) and OS version are you running?
edited 18th Jun '15 5:53:46 AM by Ripsaw
Be careful what you wish for, 'cause you might just get it all...We definitely don't allow for redirects or malware installs. Do you have any more information on the app store redirects? Any URL's that appear to be doing the redirecting? We work with 5 different ad partners and it is really hard to figure out which one is the culprit - especially when they all deny it.
I'm digging through my history - here's one
https://www.skybet.com/secure/identity/app/affiliate/track/skybet?&btag=a_18365b_873c_1038

I got a weird banner add at the bottom, which invariably somehow redirects me to a popup talking about viruses on my android. This then boots me to an advert page for some app, which then launches the Windows Phone Store.
When I try to go back, it loses the page I was on.
IE 11, Windows Phone 8.1 GDR 2.