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I always thought road.cc was a malicious redirect 😁
If you were some malicious person serving up the popups/redirects then you'd want to cover your tracks as much as possible. There's two way communication going on here so the controlling servers know when the service they've infected is shut down and started up. If they began serving popups/redirects immediately it's pretty obvious what's at fault so the infected service gets started and contacts HQ who replies "wait 35 minutes there's a bad malware and then start doing your stuff".
In the meantime the guys trying to find the errant service have shut down and restarted another couple of servers and then the popups reappear, seemingly disconnected from their actual source.
Or just stop taking ads from those networks?
Or just stop taking ads from those networks?
I'm amazed no-one's thought of that before.
It's not that simple, unfortunately. You can get rogue ads from any third-party network. This is how Mark explained it earlier:
"The configuration we have is we use only long standing trusted networks and fewer of them. I get contacted several times a week by new networks desperate to get in on our inventory. I don;t get swayed by the promises of higher revenue potential by new networks. I'm much more interested in trusted and stable sources of ads, even if this impacts on our potential to earn more money.
The networks we use are all Google approved.
Adsense (Google) - rock bottom prices but about as trusted as you get.
Criteo - Big global respected network
Sortable - Google certified and basically deliver 60% Adsense anyway
SOVRN - Longstanding trusted supplier.
Carambola - Newest addition and they deliver those ad units with the sports related factoids in them that you can interact with. They pay high [returns] that would normally put them well out of reach of the popup merchants who infect the networks."
If I'm remembering correctly the last round of redirects I think came via SOVRN - in Mark's words a "longstanding trusted supplier." So even trusted networks can get polluted occasionally.
Additionally, Mark is looking into alternative revenue streams to replace the reliance on this kind of advertising; things like sponsored content, for instance. There's a third fewer adverts being offered now than there was pre-upgrade.
one of those networks ( at least) is serving malware so should not be being trusted.
Getting almost impossible to browse on Android
25 pop ups blocked just in the process of writing this post!
Cougar, re bookmarking
Yes, we covered this last time. The bookmark login ***** with the remember me cookie for me so has had to be abandoned. Yer know we're just used to the shonky these days.
I see my message was deleted. Excellent way of dealing with the problem.
I see my message was deleted. Excellent way of dealing with the problem.
You’ve had no posts deleted.
If the aim is to make this site so ***g unusable that you piss off anyone thinking about using it or subscribing, then this evening's browsing shows one thing.
It's going REALLY well.
Six attempts to open a thread I wanted to read. Four attempts to post a reply.
How the * is that going to look for someone new, someone looking to the forum for advice, someone dipping their toe in the water of messing about with bikes and mud? They'd just look at this place as a virus infested pile of shit.
Someone had a porn redirect in public, no response. Lots of us continue to find it almost pointless trying to use the forum, no response. And no, the faithful lap dog mods running blocking isn't helping.
So, if the aim is to destroy the forum, it's going really, really well.
Given the usual mod f you response I got when I asked about the ad revenue v user experience query I got earlier, I took it the inference was they are making it so shite you need to subscribe. Seems a strange sales pitch to me. On another forum I use they just had a drive to raise money for a new server and I quite happily chucked in £20. Oddly, I figured subscription here was really just for people who wanted all the content that comes with it, so wasn't for me. But if there had been some openess about the need for funds for a forum change here, I would have been equally happy to chuck in.
Just revisiting this since i posted earlier. Had log in again, but not before my phone blocked 21 pop ups.
They’re rouge Ads that pop up
That's it. As per usual I have nothing of use to post. 🙂
as a comparison I use the local magazine site here in Norway (Terrengsykkel) - Im not even going to try and make a link to it with the state this site is in. However, this is a fairly small magazine with a limited audience and the site is basic - but seems to work fine. And the forum, even without logging in on a phone, doesnt appear to be too tedious and in your face awful adverts everywhere. Just comparing
SL2000's link hasn't worked for me. This is getting ****ing ridiculous.
Last night I posted on here using a word which is offensive. I got a warning for it and the post was deleted which is fair enough and I would like to apologise for using it.
The context was that yesterday at work I was trying to sell a bike. I work for a charity which reconditions bikes which are recovered from household waste sites and we work with prisoners and other socially challenged groups to give them skills and something useful to do.
The bike I was trying to sell is for us a big ticket bike. The customer was a young lad - maybe 16, and his mum. The sale was going well, then I remembered STW had reviewed it in one of their mags and given it a glowing report. I go to the shop computer, log in to STW and find the back issue. Only it's not been uploaded to the new site yet. Great. So I start describing the review. Then the screen changed. STW had logged me out and redirected me to a porn site. Female flesh every where. The lad looked mortified, the mother furious. They left. Now the winter has been hard for us, it's been very snowy and cold so bike sales have been poor. We haven't been paid for March yet. I'm OK but some of our staff are struggling to pay the rent, long term we are fine, but at the moment it's hard. The sale on this bike would have represented 3 good days of sales to us. We lost the sale because STW can't control what appears on the screen when paid up users go to their site.
Last night I was angry and used a word I shouldn't and I remain apologetic and embarrassed for using it but God I was provoked.
Apparently porn redirects are ok though, Was the swear word worse than the porn?
So very sorry to hear that such an extreme redirect happened borielbus, I will raise this issue again with the Tech guys.
It's also ok to swear in the magazine articles linked to from the forum.
how can something that appears to be happening all the time be classed as "extreme"
wouldnt "common place" be a better descriptor?
can we get a pop-up top trumps going? most i've had is a big 18 block, anymore advances on this?
im seeing 25 on previous posts. maybe a prize if you get 50, new samsung maybe.
25 is my record.
I'm not sure if this is relevant, but I rooted my Android phone (S4 mini) and flashed it with a custom ROM (CM11 in this case) a few years ago. I'm happy with things that just 'work' so phone and ROM have not been updated for maybe 3 years. I don't get any popups or redirects at all when browsing STW on my phone (Lightning browser). I've tried to recreate the issues that people have reported but I can't get any crap to appear.
Anyway, I guess this points to stock Android software allowing the ad problems to happen rather than actual devices...
That is truly horrible @boriselbrus and as far as we can see you are doing exactly what is needed 🙁 . I think if that ever happened to me I would stay well away from that site forever more. Then getting a warning isn't exactly sympathetic either
Looking at the Alexa ratings doesn't make it look as though things are going well either - pageviews down 15% since 3 months ago. Admittedly that is only for people with the Alexa toolbar installed but it isn't happening on other bike sites so it is difficult to believe it is not related
ALEXA.COM I've never seen dodgy ads when logged out but when logged out I see very few ads anyway (not in UK).
In your case it is even more confusing as we've been led to believe that the dodgy ads are the bottom of the barrel once you've been served all the high paying ads. You had only just been logged out so you shouldn't have been served any ads before then and hence should start with the higher paying ones. Something isn't quite right but I imagine STW towers are very aware of that if unable to fix it
At least the popup blocker is catching some of it now... Plenty of it still gets through 🙁
[IMG] 
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Then getting a warning isn’t exactly sympathetic either
We had no idea what happened when he was given the warning other than he was unhappy with the pop ups. He himself has acknowledged the language he used was unjust and has kindly explained why he used it.
Fair enough - I thought he had written a post similar to the one above
No despite what Captain claims we were not aware at all.
I was referring to an earlier porn redirect.
I was referring to an earlier porn redirect.
Ah! Pure coincidence then that you happened to mention porn being exposed in public then.
Ah! Pure coincidence then that you happened to mention porn being exposed in public then.
If the porn redirects only happen when browsing STW, then the word you're looking for is correlation, rather than coincidence. 😉
Yes to clarify, my original deleted post didn't explain at all what had happened, the warning was entirely fair and I remain very apologetic for the language I used.
If the porn redirects only happen when browsing STW, then the word you’re looking for is correlation, rather than coincidence.
Quite. Also, when I posted I was unaware of the situation Boris experienced
Still, probably just a coincidence. I'm sure no one else can replicate it. Must be happening on loads of other sites.
Who was the other member Captain that had it exposed publicly as I can’t recall that at all, I know there has been a few say they have had this happen but not anyone else claiming it was exposed to a member of the public. When I seen your post last night absolutely no idea what you were on about.
Can you provide a link to the post please?
The person was in a crowded place - airport lounge I think - browsing STW and a redirect to a port site with sound activated...so people around him heard some noises.
Pretty sure it was posted on this thread several pages back...
The person was in a crowded place – airport lounge I think – browsing STW and a redirect to a port site with sound activated…so people around him heard some noises.
Pretty sure it was posted on this thread several pages back…
No help, but thats my memory too..
Try using the search function..
Try using the search function.
😁
Nope, not this pop-up issue thread...
I tried browsing the site on my mobile yesterday, I gave up, without ABP it was completely unusable. Ads drive revenue only if they don't drive users away.
Drac,
Try using the search function..
😀
Don't want to jinx anything, but last and today have been pop up and redirect free on Android for me. Thanks.
Another pop up yesterday - on Android.
All this “we’re doing our best” bullshit is just pathetic. I challenge anyone to name any site anywhere else on the internet that is half as bad as this one in this respect.
(Except perhaps for porn sites, but even then the ads are probably relevant to the users)