Fake virus redirects

[monthefish]

This is a disgrace.

User's shouldn't have to resort to their own blocking software - PH should be in FULL control of the advertising on their site.

[Nigel_O]

I only get the “free iPhone” stuff on my iPad, and only then when using Safari. No problems at all when using Firefox

[Getragdogleg]

monthefish said:

This is a disgrace.

User's shouldn't have to resort to their own blocking software - PH should be in FULL control of the advertising on their site.

They're not, not even slightly.

What has happened is they have sold a slice of space to an advertiser, the advertiser turns out to have filled the space with crap and that crap is leaking. PH cant wriggle out of the contract and has little to no control over that bit of the website because they sold it.

Now they have to ask the bad man nicely to please stop his adverts leaking. The man is uninterested in doing so.

[Nigel_O]

Has the offending advert been identified yet?

My page gets hijacked even when I’m reading the forums - most forum pages only have a couple of ads (one halfway down and the collection of click-bait at the bottom). The fact that some forum pages don’t get hijacked probably means it’s not the footer ads, but the one halfway down

Shouldn’t take too long to work out which on is the culprit

I would have thought that the T&Cs for advertisers would forbid spam ads

[Prawo Jazdy]

Mr Whippy said:

Getting this on PH and Autotrader.

Not noticed it elsewhere though. Hmmm.

Same for me. AT is all but unusable at the moment for this reason. That, and the reaction times for search selections is about 20 seconds or more, if it works at all - agonising. Remember the days when there was still a link to the old old old AT site that didn’t ruin everything with pointless UI upgrades? Bliss.

I’m sure this is all my fault for daring to have devices that are over six months old. What the fk was I thinking?!

[4x4Tyke]

monthefish said:

This is a disgrace.

User's shouldn't have to resort to their own blocking software - PH should be in FULL control of the advertising on their site.

PH should, out of self interest.

However that doesn't absolve Users, who should also be prepared to defend their own self interest as well, PH is not the only site people use.

Those prepared to surrender their self protection to others in exchange for some imagined safety are being foolish.

Edited by 4x4Tyke on Wednesday 22 August 08:44

[IanJ9375]

Run some ad blocker and also look to something like Ghostery

https://www.ghostery.com/products/?utm_source=ghos...

[DonkeyApple]

Nigel_O said:

Has the offending advert been identified yet?

My page gets hijacked even when I’m reading the forums - most forum pages only have a couple of ads (one halfway down and the collection of click-bait at the bottom). The fact that some forum pages don’t get hijacked probably means it’s not the footer ads, but the one halfway down

Shouldn’t take too long to work out which on is the culprit

I would have thought that the T&Cs for advertisers would forbid spam ads

The ads in posts look like an AdChoices set up and the ones at the bottom either Taboola or Outbrain. You’d expect the latter as Taboola really is the oik end of the humanoid spectrum.

You would think that it would be simple enough to work out which service provider was damaging your business and then turn them off while you deal directly with them and wait for them to find the problem in their service and fix it.

As other large publishers are having the exact same issue then is it really beyond the whit of modern man to pick up the phone and deal with this issue on a cohesive front?

Anyway, good luck to PH sorting it and thanks again to the person who gave the links to the Adblock app as it has worked perfectly.

[feef]

Getragdogleg said:

monthefish said:

This is a disgrace.

User's shouldn't have to resort to their own blocking software - PH should be in FULL control of the advertising on their site.

They're not, not even slightly.

What has happened is they have sold a slice of space to an advertiser, the advertiser turns out to have filled the space with crap and that crap is leaking. PH cant wriggle out of the contract and has little to no control over that bit of the website because they sold it.

Now they have to ask the bad man nicely to please stop his adverts leaking. The man is uninterested in doing so.

What's more likely is that they've sold the space to someone else, who has then sold it on for a minimal profit but with zero effort. The chain may go on longer than even 1 or 2 deep, and the further down the chain the reselling goes, the more likely you get dross for adverts, even if the first level is a reputable advertiser (at least as reputable as advertising agencies can be)

[4x4Tyke]

Blocker plugins are not the best solution. Using the hosts file as a blacklist will be far more effective in the long run, it will function across browsers, across updates and cannot be short circuited by flaws in browsers or plugins.

Edited by 4x4Tyke on Wednesday 22 August 13:51

[Funk]

4x4Tyke said:

Blocker plugins are not the best solution. Use the hosts file as a blacklist will be far more effective in the long run, it will function across browsers, across updates and cannot be short circuited by flaws in browsers or plugins.

The only issue with a massive hosts file is it can slow things down...

I do also use a modified hosts file as well though.

[4x4Tyke]

Funk said:

The only issue with a massive hosts file is it can slow things down...

I do also use a modified hosts file as well though.

I'd judge that minimal, it is an in memory lookup and very much less than the network latency of actually loading something only to filter it out, throw it away via a plugin.

[Mr Whippy]

UMatrix!

[Unbusy]

4x4Tyke said:

Blocker plugins are not the best solution. Using the hosts file as a blacklist will be far more effective in the long run, it will function across browsers, across updates and cannot be short circuited by flaws in browsers or plugins

Ye gods Tyke, some of us are total amateurs at this IT stuff and you come on here talking Chinese! :headexploded:

[4x4Tyke]

Unbusy said:

Ye gods Tyke, some of us are total amateurs at this IT stuff and you come on here talking Chinese! :headexploded:

OK, sorry, it is actually quite straightforward, once you get past the IT jargon. A blacklist is just the same as the normal meaning.

A host file is just like a telephone/address book, it is text file. It maps the name of a host (site/server) to what is called the IP number (the real address of the server). e.g.

0.0.0.0 ads.doubleclick.net
...

On a windows machine the blacklist hosts file should be put here: C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc

To use a blacklist you choose one from the link I provided above and copy it to the specific folder/directory on your own machine, you will need to do this as the administrator on a windows machine. It does include an installer, but I think it is easier to do manually myself.

There are a dozen or so versions that block different things, malware (virus) & scams (phishing), ads, porn are few. Choose one that covers what you want to block. If you have young kids you might want to block everything dodgy including porn, if you're single guy you might only want to block known scams and virus sites.


How it works

All the internet application on your computer will first try the hosts file and only attempt to look it up on the internet if it is not present there. Network latency is just the time it takes to look that up, looking something up on the internet is slower than looking it up on your hard disc, and looking it up on the hard disc is slower than looking it up from memory. Think of that as exactly to same as calling directory enquiries to find a number from a name, it takes a little time. Some telephone numbers you dial direct from memory, some you look up in your phones address book, or paper address book and some you need to call directory enquiries.

[vikingaero]

Still redirecting to ste. It's not even clicking, sometimes just moving your mouse over an ad to click on some other part of the screen causes the redirect.

[vikingaero]

https://iartjqewa.zafmr.today/?sov=508724193&h...

[kippax]

Still happening

[Getragdogleg]

It's a poor show when PH is dirtier than your average porn site !

[Mr Whippy]

I had it on eBay earlier.

Now using my vpn on iPhone again, nice n fast and without spam screen hijacking!

Sorry PH but if you can’t serve nice ads I’m just going to starve you of all my info.