[Closed] Admin: Malicious Advert

The AVG warning is for a "fake flash exploit".

Cheers atlaz - makes sense!

I just got a pop up - something about an Android speedup. While I was reading a post on the chat forum. It had a cancel button so I risked it. First time I've seen this don't get it on my other regular websites. Nexus 4 with KitKat.

Galaxy S4 mini, on mobile data, just got the speed up your phone one...

I am plagued by love links.us and ads.yahoo.com. Am in France. On android tablet and android mobile. Some of the pop ups are far from suitable especially considering my son watches over my shoulder when on this forum.

It has been going on for over 3 months now with no apparent improvement.

Given for a logged in premium user there's 3 sets of tracking/ad codes and when you're logged out there's 33, I guess the investigation will be a bit of a bitch.

It does seem to be down tot he people serving the ads to have robust processes in place.

They seem to just let people post up stuff with no real controls in place about what's embedded in them.

Very difficult for stw to police because, as you say, the sheer volume of sources and ads is too much to manage.

Seems legit
[img] [/img]

I've had that one on my phone and my tablet today.

I'm still getting them on my phone (Galaxy S3). I also get pop-up blocked alerts on my Nexus 7, I can only assume it's the same thing.

I get them on both my Galaxy Tab 8, and my Galaxy Note 2. I also get them on artofmanliness.com

Its only a matter of time before singletrackworld.com gets added to the malicious content list on websense etc.

[quote=petrieboy ]Its only a matter of time before singletrackworld.com gets added to the malicious content list on websense etc.
Except that the ads aren't coming from singletrackworld.com. If you read the thread you'll see that they are popping up all over the place.

Singletrackworld IS serving the ad's which ARE serving up malicious content. I'm not seeing anyone stating they are getting these elsewhere (but I'm sure other websites will be effected)
The only responsible thing to do would be to switch off all ads until the offending service can be identified but as this has been going on for some time and Admin have not given an update, it doesn't look like that's happening.

[quote=petrieboy ]Singletrackworld IS serving the ad's which ARE serving up malicious content. I'm not seeing anyone stating they are getting these elsewhere (but I'm sure other websites will be effected)
The only responsible thing to do would be to switch off all ads until the offending service can be identified but as this has been going on for some time and Admin have not given an update, it doesn't look like that's happening.
search for "lovelinks.us popup"

It is a fair point. If STW is the vehicle for malicious ads that people are seeing the easiest thing to do would be to stop mobile adverts for the moment

Just rummaging on my tablet.

If you go into Chrome, Settings, Content Settings, there's a tick box there which says "Block pop-ups." Mine was already ticked, and I've never seen these malicious adverts.

There's also an "Enable JavaScript" tick box. Mine's also enabled, but I'd expect that disabling it will kill the malicious adverts stone dead (at the expense of potential loss of functionality on other web pages which use JS legitimately).

If you go into Chrome, Settings, Content Settings, there's a tick box there which says "Block pop-ups." Mine was already ticked, and I've never seen these malicious adverts.

For anyone like me, peering myopically at their settings, "Content settings..." is a button, in the privacy section of the Chrome settings. It's a really obvious button, but for some reason I kept scrolling past it.

Mine is ticked too, so I suspect it's ticked by default.

f you go into Chrome, Settings, Content Settings, there's a tick box there which says "Block pop-ups." Mine was already ticked, and I've never seen these malicious adverts.

In my settings the following is ticked 'Do not allow any site to show pop-ups (recommended)'

Still got a Citroen survey pop up earlier

Starting to take the piss now. Had 6 various ones today, now this one.
[img] [/img]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ? that's my favorite one up there

I've been having issues with this as well, to the point that I simply could not visit the website on my phone... I have managed to do it though, here's what I did:

1) If you're using Chrome on your mobile, then go into settings, then Content settings and make sure 'block pop-ups from all sites' is checked. But, you also then need to go into 'website settings' (it's in the same section), then scroll through to find the STW URL, click on this and then make sure that pop-ups aren't allowed in there (they were on my phone, despite being disallowed in the global settings)

2) I also installed 360 Security on my phone, which has its own pop-up blocker amongst other things, it looks to be a useful app to have on your phone anyway.

So, those steps have worked for me, no more pop-ups and trouble free browsing of the site, huzzah. Hopefully this helps someone else in their frustration!

Now this shit.
[img] [/img]

And it did it again after I posted that ^

Think I might be time to root the phone and install something.

Really. **** Off with that ****ing **** of a quashqai ad.

I got the "Web browser too slow" one earlier, on Nexus Chrome with pop ups blocked.
It's only on this site, but I can't complain as I haven't got Premier. 🙁

Teeth grinder I was getting that last night was making stw almost unusable seems to have gone this morning 🙂

follow-up to previous post; to confirm I do not get these on my phone, laptop or tablet when using my home wifi, but had it constantly when using hotel wifi a week or so ago (no change in device settings).

Uh oh just got the quasqaui add again ! Seems to dissapear after I logged in ?

Edit : nope its back !

Still getting it

Actually popped up while I sv typing this

Stw is almost unusable on my phone !

I never use Sarafi on our iPad. Mercury browser is way better in many many ways.

I never use Sarafi on our iPad.

Coast is a nice browser for iPad, but the tight integration that Safari has with other parts of the Apple "ecosystem" makes it hard to do without.

I'm getting this now, a toolbar type thing across the bottom of the screen,
[IMG] [/IMG]
When you press the X to get rid it goes away and then comes back when you go to another page..
🙁
Edit, I've cleared cookies and data it seems to have stopped..
Edit 2, I've not had the ugly Nissan pile of crap yet though..

The toolbar is also appearing on Android (using Chrome):

[IMG] [/IMG]

Toolbar is connected to a blue sidebar advert full of spammy text ads.

I've gone into the advanced Safari settings and cleared the STW website and advert data and re logged in and it seems to have stopped it..
[fingers crossed]

The blue spammy thing is about to be destroyed!

Getting the menu bar at the bottom, too.

Made some changes... Not sure if it will have worked until I get no more reports from you guys so please report the awful menu bar thingy if you get it

I've just had it on my android phone!

Just got the toolbar thingy.

Definitely seems connected to that blue advert - the advert has changed slightly, now lots of buttons instead of text links.

I'm getting toolbar thing.
It stopped for a few pages when I logged on 5 mins ago but it's back!

Have had it on and off on iOS for a while, today it's made the site unusable on mobile devices (currently logged on here via desktop Mac)

Yep, off and on for me today too. Toolbar now only seems to appear on the forum main menu screen, rather than each thread page.

Android phone, logged out for some reason, got this pop up
[img] [/img].

Been redirected to some poxy game in the App Store three times in the last 24 hours.

IPad2 and Safari, fully updated iOS 7

Come on STW sort it out!!

Been redirected to some poxy game in the App Store three times in the last 24 hours.

IPad2 and Safari, fully updated iOS 7

Come on STW sort it out!!

Yeah, I got that last night.

The offender:

[img] [/img]

...incidentally, I think the game is free.

Somethings slowing it down on my PC, 15mb/s internet, fast-ish, clean-ish PC, everything's fine apart form this site, annoying as it's usually open in the background, then suddenly slows it to a crawl.

I have given-up looking at STW on my phone... it just opens up "clash of clans" (or some such nonsense) in the app store.

[quote=batfink ]I have given-up looking at STW on my phone... it just opens up "clash of clans" (or some such nonsense) in the app store.
Even when you are logged on? Have you selected the "Fewer Ads" option in your Premier Membership settings?

Not had it for ages but just got bumped to the William hill bookies app.

And again. Almost tempted to put a bet on when it happens next...

Yep - I'm getting William hill too

Still getting redirects to the App Store for this shitty game:

[IMG] [/IMG]

As previous poster mentioned, probably time to call it a day browsing STW via iOS devices.

I must say, I haven't had a re-direct for maybe a couple of weeks, and I only use my iPad for Web stuff. I was getting re-directs in other places as well, but it does seem to have stopped for me.

I must say, I haven't had a re-direct for maybe a couple of weeks, and I only use my iPad for Web stuff. I was getting re-directs in other places as well, but it does seem to have stopped for me.

You're being protected by you Premier membership, CZ. As I guess you have the minimal ads option checked?

Lots of re-directs this morning from multiple threads. All to AppStore to download William Hill app. 😐

EDIT: from iOS on phone. Forum ads are on.

Four redirects in the last twenty minutes all to William Hill app in the app store.
iOS 7 on 4c, adverts on.

Just happened 5 or 6 times in last few minutes for me. All to William Hill app.

Yep, constant William Hill redirects, iOS 7 on a 4s.

Whenever i get redirected to the play store for an app.... i rate it the lowest possible score and leave a scathing review. They're paying for the ads, their placement is their problem.

I just tried to leave a review, it wouldn't let me cos I don't own the app.

Still happening every single time I come to the forum.

Multiple re-directs this morning, this time to the Game of War app reference above. C'mon coders, sort it out. 😡

EDIT: I guess it was this add on the right:

[IMG] [/IMG]

I do wonder how many casual visitors to the site are not staying due to this problem and what impact on revenue that's happening?

It's obviously an industry wide issue but there has to be a technical solution to stopping redirects on mobile browsers (which seem to be the target) that could be adopted by the ad-servers themselves.

I installed a pop-up blocker on my phone which seems to work but it's not an ideal solution - this needs sorting at an application level.

DD,
Are you in Germany?

Still happening. Malware alert, browser memory alert and redirects to an "app"

Firefox user so not so bad other than the odd flash problem. Not complaining as understand the need to monetise the site but there's a balance to be struck as with all things.

DD,
Are you in Germany?

🙂

Sorry, only just seen this. I was staying at a hotel in London run by mkhotels.de and using their wifi - it's a German company - and I assume that's why all (apart from the Game of Wars one) the ads on the site were German based.

In general the site's been pretty bad over the weekend. Mostly re-directs to the William Hill app.

You're being protected by you Premier membership, CZ. As I guess you have the minimal ads option checked?

I got it on mtbr.com yesterday.

Redirect to Monster Legends Mobile game this morning along with numerous to William Hill in the past few weeks 🙁

This now.
[IMG] [/IMG]

I got Monster Legends a day or so ago, much less frequent than it used to be, certainly, but I still get them, and not always STW, as I said before.
Almost as bad as PPI phone calls...

Just had the AppStore auto-open for Candy Blast Mania on my iPad. 🙁

I'd been getting some improbably configured Anime girls as an advert for a game.. seems to have calmed down again now!