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
Directed myself to the wrong thread earlier. (Thanks Septimus...) Anyone else encountering ads sitting awkwardly towards the beginning of the articles tonight? I've been browsing on mobile when at roughly 7:15pm, ads started appearing near the beginning of the article. Should this be shrugged off, or is this a legitimate problem, and can it be fixed?
Basically canon
Those ads that appear in between the definition and the examples need to be gone yesterday. They tend to be large ads, and regardless of size, they throw the reader out of their immersion (is that the right word?) so the ad can capitalize at them. It's obnoxious.
edited 27th Nov '17 10:08:22 PM by Midna
pearlina brainrot affects millions of people worldwide. if you or a loved one are suffering from pearlina brainrot, call 1-800-GAY-NERDS
Lost in Space
Please use the 'Report this ad' link if it's visible to help us ID these. We don't run interstitials so it must be misbehaving ad code. We can only do something about it if we can identify which ads are responsible.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
I can't click "Report this Ad" when the entire page gets force-loaded as https://www.zaful.com/?utm_source=webgainsusa&siteid=207485 or usasurveys.net
EDIT: or https://www.roblox.com/?v=rc&rbx_source=4&rbx_medium=cpa&rbx_campaign=108178
edited 29th Nov '17 12:01:09 PM by Simpson17866
Lost in Space
Per the admins, interstitial ads are indeed part of our site's design, and intended. (Sorry for earlier misinformation.) If you're blocking ads, they'll show up as blank spaces between folders or between the example header and the examples.
The placement coding may be a bit wonky, which is something they're working on in the beta site.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
I'm getting redirected to pages that state my phone has a virus and I need to download programs to get rid of it. The only way I can get out is going back a page but if I go back to the site and look up stuff, it pops up again on my Android phone. Can someone fix this or do I need to ignore the site?
The Unknown
I've been occasionally getting ads on my iPhone 6 that crash the page and force it to reload. I can't report them with the tool because I don't think the ads are properly loading, so I don't know which ones are doing it.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
Blapper of Water
The video that scrolls my screen to it is back. Last time, it appeared on a Mac computer, but now it's appearing on a PC. Except now it's on the forums, TLP, and ATT. And trying to play audio.
Here's the link to the ad: https://s-static.innovid.com/media/encoded/06_17/79255/8_source_46266_137067.mp4
Here's the last time I reported it:courtesy link
edited 4th Dec '17 7:28:22 AM by WaterBlap
Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty
I'm getting an insurance ad (coveredCA) that freezes my screen to it and autoplays sound. These ads make the site almost unusable. We need to block them.
edited 5th Dec '17 9:22:32 AM by jameygamer
Blapper of Water
Wherever I am on the wiki, if I am typing something, certain advertisements will pull the cursor out of the text box. This is incredibly annoying when I'm on ATT or here, now, reporting the issue. Is this intentional? Here are a few of the ads I can tell are doing this:
There's also a Target banner ad at the top of the page that is doing this, and a Claddagh one as well. Those are not video ads, and I can't copy-paste their links so I'll just report them through the report ad button.
Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty
I’m on mobile, using an iPad. Sometimes while this site is loading pages, there’s a pop up from app.mediaplex.com asking me to input a username and password even though I’ve never made an account on it. I’m not entirely sure if the problem’s purely on my end, but I suspect that it might be an advertising issue.
This account is dead. I’ve said a lot of dumb things in the past and I wish to forget them. I’m sorry if I’ve ever hurt anyone.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I'm getting the same message on multiple devices and only when I'm on TVTropes
edited 8th Dec '17 7:06:02 PM by jormis29
Ugh, I got the pop-up just as I’m typing this post. It appears to be a fairly recent thing, with it first occurring around two-three days ago. This is the URL for the parent site: https://app.mediaplex.com/.
She/Her | inactive for now
Yup, I'm getting this pop-up too. And I'm using an Android phone, so...
The Unknown
I'm getting a popup ad for Macy's on my iPhone that takes up most of the screen. Since it's a popup I can't report it directly.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
...
It isn't an ad exactly, but while not logged in yesterday I kept on getting that "Turn off adblocker" message that you get when you're not logged in. I remember it occured to several users a few months ago but I thought it had been fixed. I haven't seen it in weeks.
How sweet it is
Okay, the page-covering clickbait ad issue is back on mobile browser. Looking at the URL addresses for the destinations, and they have a main part in common:
http://api.content-ad.net/Lib/TrackOutboundClick.aspx?
edited 11th Dec '17 4:55:50 PM by Berrenta
she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
I was on my phone earlier today and kept coming across a pop-up of ads that seemed inappropriate for this site. They went away after I turned on family friendly mode, through.
Also, has anyone else been getting redirected to a coupon selling site? I have been getting there while browsing the pages here.
20 Years old Rating: Awesome
I keep getting redirected to one of those "congratulations, you won" scams whenever I browse on my iPhone. I've tried deleting my website data, but that only works for so long before the problem comes back again. I've also recently had the same problem on my laptop as well. This is starting to get incredibly annoying, so are there any ways to keep it from happening?
"Life is hard. It's harder if you're stupid."-John Wayne
How sweet it is
Speaking of which, got one just as I headed to the forums.
http://user.display.serving-sys.top/index.php?Flow=9215129304392403&uid=6e5270a0d49d192d506df276b1cabfa6&toke=D0d0W9Xrz&pagecode=1513123388.9318&actken=AH4=lE2mlyG8nG2Futc1nApvYM3HiEs0aBnJZFKHUwGtX9K5pS75ryqNZv4AFLWQaAbBTFo7kEGikxWUoBmRnuc5rBpwWQLEiSw0eRTyUTaTGuG4k8q9lFotxz5sowlHZ7j74
she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
Not that kind of doctor
Just got a redirect and pop-up ad on my phone multiple times, attempting to get me to download an app to deal with alleged viruses. Address of the redirect is below:
edited 13th Dec '17 7:24:34 AM by NotOnAnyFlatbread
Osamu Sato Fanatic
http://usasurveys.org/us/ron/layout2/back.php
This unwanted redirect ad keeps appearing on TV Tropes.