Tracking down the malicious ads

Quizzical

Several months ago, you started having a malicious ad problem on this site.  There's some particular ad network that claims focus periodically.  If you try to type a forum post while one of those ads is displayed, the cursor periodically disappears in the middle of your typing and the letters you type stop taking effect.  Having to click back to the text box in the middle of every other sentence is an enormous nuisance, and perilously close to "forum doesn't work" levels of badness.

I was pretty sure that it was due to malicious ads, as if you block ads, the problem vanished.  Allow ads again and the problem comes back.  I complained about it repeatedly back then, and when the problem didn't get fixed, gave up and just blocked ads on the forum.  It's only really a problem for forum usage, not the main page, so I didn't block ads on your main page.

Today, the problem came back, even with ads blocked.  I scrolled up and saw that you've found some way to get ads past the ad-blocker.  I get that you hate ad blockers, as you need revenue.  But you also need for your site to work, and malicious ads impede that.

After a bunch of repeated reloading of the page over the course of typing some lengthy posts, and flipping the ad blocker off and on repeatedly, I may have isolated the problem.  On the right sidebar, you have an "MMOs and games to play..." box that highlights some games that have paid for ads here.  Right below that, you put a vertical banner ad that is much taller than it is wide.  That's the spot where the problematic ads are appearing.

One particular ad network has the vertical banner split into three boxes that are each kind of close to square.  You can click an X in the top right of each to make the particular ad disappear, and it asks why you don't want to see that ad.  "Because it's breaking the web site" is not one of the options, but it should be.  If that type of ad appears, then the forum-breaking behavior of the cursor periodically disappearing happens.  If it's a more normal banner ad, then the forum works fine.  Clicking to close all three of the sub-ads doesn't fix the problem.  It appears that the problem isn't with the particular ads that cover 1/3 of the panel, but the software that delivers the ads.

The malicious ad is kind of stealthy, in that it doesn't load until after well after the rest of the page.  It also doesn't load until you've likely scrolled the page way down so that you won't see the ad.  That makes it rather useless for advertising purposes.  It makes me wonder if it's trying to be a keylogger or something, and the "ads" are just an excuse to be allowed on the page, and that's why it's claiming focus:  so that it will pick up your keystrokes.  If that's the case, then that's much worse than merely breaking forum functionality.

MadCoderOne

I would look at your PC friend. I come here a lot, no issues.

Quizzical

If the problem is with my computer, then why has it happened many times on this site and never on any other site that I visit?  And why for so many months did blocking ads make the problem vanish?

Octagon7711

I had this issue yesterday or the day before.  I switched to another browser. From Brave to Chrome and had no problems.  This Chrome does have more aggressive blockers.

Phry

I've found there are less problems if you block cookies from google.com .. but clearing cookies automatically once the browser is closed also helps. Perhaps i am a bit paranoid about such things, but then again, preventatives are also a form of 'cure' 

Phry

Opera browser has addblocking by default, firefox used to be pretty good, google chrome and IE, i just avoid.

Scorchien

Not experiencing any of that , and that area in the OP is blacked out as normal ..

Slapshot1188

This is happening a TON on me today.  I thought I was going crazy.  Exactly like Quizzical describes... I will be typing a response and suddenly my cursor goes elsewhere.  I thought I was hitting the windows key by accident or something.

If someone figures out how to fix this or a program to load to stop it please let me know.  This is pretty bad today.

MadFrenchie

Slapshot1188 said:

This is happening a TON on me today.  I thought I was going crazy.  Exactly like Quizzical describes... I will be typing a response and suddenly my cursor goes elsewhere.  I thought I was hitting the windows key by accident or something.

If someone figures out how to fix this or a program to load to stop it please let me know.  This is pretty bad today.

Experienced the same myself, and held the same wrong assumption you did at first.

Quizzical

Scorchien said:

Not experiencing any of that , and that area in the OP is blacked out as normal ..

I could certainly believe that it's possible to block the malicious ad.  But it's the sort of ad that should be blocked by ad network, or at least by the site (by dropping the ad network) before it ever attempts to send it to the end user's browser.

MadFrenchie

Octagon7711 said:

I had this issue yesterday or the day before.  I switched to another browser. From Brave to Chrome and had no problems.  This Chrome does have more aggressive blockers.

I use Chrome and still experience the text cursor jumping issue periodically.

Scorchien

Quizzical said:

Scorchien said:

Not experiencing any of that , and that area in the OP is blacked out as normal ..

I could certainly believe that it's possible to block the malicious ad.  But it's the sort of ad that should be blocked by ad network, or at least by the site (by dropping the ad network) before it ever attempts to send it to the end user's browser.

Yea , im not trying to be that guy .. Just givin feedback Quiz .. i got nothing

  I think No-Script , is blocking it or Ad blocker , im not a pc guy

Slapshot1188

MadFrenchie said:

Octagon7711 said:

I had this issue yesterday or the day before.  I switched to another browser. From Brave to Chrome and had no problems.  This Chrome does have more aggressive blockers.

I use Chrome and still experience the text cursor jumping issue periodically.

Chrome here too.  Although I want to say it’s happened on my iPad as well but can’t be sure.  Now that I know it’s not me I will keep an eye on it.

Grunty

Insticator anti-adblocking

I've been receiving their own advertisement on this website for months.  Their own ads are constantly flashing and moving and are really the only ads on this website that I've been trying to block because of how annoying they are.  

k61977

I run ad blockers all the time anymore.  I realize sites like this one need revenue to run but to be honest I don't need all the issues or risk that can come with ads.  All sites really need to come up with a better solution to funding because I will not stop using an Ad blockers and when sites start getting around the blocker I just switch to another one that is working.  Just opening this page on the forum alone over 11 ads were blocked. 

Quizzical

k61977 said:

I run ad blockers all the time anymore.  I realize sites like this one need revenue to run but to be honest I don't need all the issues or risk that can come with ads.  All sites really need to come up with a better solution to funding because I will not stop using an Ad blockers and when sites start getting around the blocker I just switch to another one that is working.  Just opening this page on the forum alone over 11 ads were blocked. 

Do you want for basically every site that isn't there to sell you something to make you pay for access to the site?  As a way to get revenue, that's the alternative to advertising.

As a way to stop malicious ads, the best idea I've got is to make a restricted programming language that is incapable of expressing most of the things that make ads malicious.  If an ad can't redirect you, can't play sound, can't resize itself, can't access your hard drive (whether to read or write), can't launch another process, runs in its own thread and can't spawn another, can't see anything else on the page, and whatever other restrictions we need, then the malicious ad problem would be greatly mitigated.  Ads created in that ad language wouldn't be guaranteed to be clean, but they'd be much less problematic than what we have now.  The problem is that if someone created all of that infrastructure, the ad blockers would all immediately block everything written in the ad language, as it would flag itself as being too easy to identify as an advertisement.

k61977

Quizzical said:

k61977 said:

I run ad blockers all the time anymore.  I realize sites like this one need revenue to run but to be honest I don't need all the issues or risk that can come with ads.  All sites really need to come up with a better solution to funding because I will not stop using an Ad blockers and when sites start getting around the blocker I just switch to another one that is working.  Just opening this page on the forum alone over 11 ads were blocked. 

Do you want for basically every site that isn't there to sell you something to make you pay for access to the site?  As a way to get revenue, that's the alternative to advertising.

As a way to stop malicious ads, the best idea I've got is to make a restricted programming language that is incapable of expressing most of the things that make ads malicious.  If an ad can't redirect you, can't play sound, can't resize itself, can't access your hard drive (whether to read or write), can't launch another process, runs in its own thread and can't spawn another, can't see anything else on the page, and whatever other restrictions we need, then the malicious ad problem would be greatly mitigated.  Ads created in that ad language wouldn't be guaranteed to be clean, but they'd be much less problematic than what we have now.  The problem is that if someone created all of that infrastructure, the ad blockers would all immediately block everything written in the ad language, as it would flag itself as being too easy to identify as an advertisement.

It shouldn't be the users that have to create ways to combat malicious ads on sites, that's the problem today though.  It should be on the host to do, but in today's world that isn't the way it works.  Most say hey we do our part an don't put anything bad up or allow anyone to put up anything malicious, but how many times has that actually worked.  I have created scripts in the past myself to stop this crap, but to be honest I got tired of having to do it myself so I just use whichever program is working anymore to just stop ads altogether.  Unfortunately this is the world we live in.  The internet brings out the worst in humanity in reality, an they will do whatever they can to make the easiest money, which in case of the internet is find ways to steal your information an use it or sell it to someone else that will.  Ultimately the cost to host sites is peanuts these days to be honest compared to 20 years ago.  I will be honest I would be more than happy to donate a little money here or there to sites that are 100% clean with no ads, unfortunately again most likely the majority wouldn't be so we are stuck with what we have.  Until sites are 100% clean I will continue to do my part on my end to protect myself.

Grunt350

I usually use uBlock origin in chrome to infinity and beyond to get rid of most of the ads.

Tiller

No adblock is like driving without a seat belt imho.  Adblock for me all the way, 14 are blocked on this page alone.

I have tried to turn it off for a few sites, then ended up regretting it instantly. I once turned it off for Dulfy's GW2 page and instantly got one hell of a virus that nothing could remove from one of their ads. I've turned it off here but when I'm on my old laptop this site slows to a crawl from the ads. Since then I am afraid to turn it off anywhere. If the site won't let me visit with it on, I leave the site. Until websites get rid of the flash tracker adds with malicious scripts, I always keep adblock on for the safety of my computer.

FlyByKnight

I adblock and purposefully block everything here now. There's no accountability and as stated previously they use janky ad networks that inject nasty code every once in a blue moon. Not worth white listing dealing with the fallout #sorrynotsorry. 

Even now I'm wondering which of the network they're using is circumventing adblock out of the box, because I'm seeing ads slip through again.

Also, this site has close to 100 3rd party ad applications (not including Google). I'm in too decent of a mood to kick up dust about it but yah.

cheyane

May be because I am on opera and run content blockers, no script  I don't see anything.

Dakeru

I am using Opera and am not getting malicious scripts however the ads I am seeing lately are beyond questionable.

alkarionlog

you guys forget ads are aimed for you based on your searches, what you did/saw and what the site permit.

so if you are getting adds with amlware I would first do a whole clean up on cookies and historic, clean it all, then put adblock up and be happy,

Dakeru

alkarionlog said:

you guys forget ads are aimed for you based on your searches, what you did/saw and what the site permit.

so if you are getting adds with amlware I would first do a whole clean up on cookies and historic, clean it all, then put adblock up and be happy,

I'm sorry but that's nonsense.
I had my share of flower ads here because I had been looking for seeds on amazon and that is fine.

But I am not a citizen of the US and Europeans don't usually sue companies because they bought their baseball bats.
Given that this is just bait to lure a greedy sucker into clicking the malware link.

The shady network is at fault, not the users here and it's this site's job to remove such dubious clients.

Renoaku

Um well I can see the ad's pictures on this site, however no site will load any type of click-able ad's or overlays for me thus it's easier to avoid malicious ad's and stuff.

- Esset Antivirus
- Https Everywhere
- Ublock Origin
- Privacy Badger
- Google Chrome

Will make everything a lot secure.

https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

https://www.eff.org/privacybadger

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en

This also helps prevent sites, other sites from spying on you / trackers, as well, though it blocks legitimate transactions from certain game companies such as Xsolla API, so you will have to allow these through privacy badger manually though it's way worthhit because it makes things more secure for thhe general user.

Though if you wan't to become totally anonymous, you can also change your DNS to http://1.1.1.1/ , use http://duck.com/ , and use Firefox + multi-layered VPN /Free Wifi depending on what your goal is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z7H5tXqMGo  <--- Anonymous Online guide.

This also helps prevent you from getting pwned.
https://haveibeenpwned.com/

etlar

This site has tons and tons of trackers, also non-ads included. get ghostery and other programs to remove it, and use a vpn.