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Post by qwertymodo Sun 1 May 2016 - 12:45

Viewing the site on mobile, there are a ton of ads that pop up new windows and redirect to the Android store and stuff like that. I'm not sure what kind of control you have over that, but it's pretty bad. I don't mind the in-page banners, but anything that hijacks control like that is really annoying (and also a big red flag for potential malvertising).
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Post by Puzzledude Sun 1 May 2016 - 13:33

This of course has nothing to do with forum settings. For instance Admins and Mods have no adverts ever. It matters how you connect to the site (basically what type of connection you have). Viewing the site on the mobile depends of the software you are using (ie a browser). The browser can get compromised with adds. Such a malitious code on your end will render all those ads and even worse things.

I don't think any site (re)settings can prevent what you are experiencing.
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Post by qwertymodo Sun 1 May 2016 - 13:48

Are you telling me the site doesn't have banner ads? Are you sure you're not running an ad blocker?

Problematic ads TsPR4VD
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Post by Mr.x Sun 1 May 2016 - 14:18

I suggest adjusting your browser security to prevent popups. It's generally a good idea to prevent malware and pop-up and pop-under windows. This site is not malicious but the ads could be; even google ads can be malicious. In any case, not all users are going to have good security so it's a good idea to regulate ads for reputation purposes.

Aren't there ads that show up as posts as well?

Mr.x
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Post by Puzzledude Sun 1 May 2016 - 15:25

Are you telling me the site doesn't have banner ads? Are you sure you're not running an ad blocker?
Yes, there are 2 types of ads, banner add (mandatory) and Post ads (show up as last post of topics). I believe these 2 are compensation for the domain.
But you have various others, which are far more annoing, like on every Media fire shortcut a malitious sofware (as part of mediafire site) will put in an unplanned ad site before the download and some other bots which will underline random words making them shortcuts to ads with a picture popup uppon moving accross with the mouse.

If everything is set correctly regular users and the ones not log in should experience only the first 2 types of ads, the third type is mediafire (not even mods can avoid this, that's why mediafire shortcuts are unwanted, but rather direct downloads), the last type will happen only based on your internal software/browser being compromised.

As far as I know the first 2 types of ads have these settings:
-not logged in (display banner and post ads)
-regular user logged in (display banner ad, but not post ads)
-admin or moderator logged in (banner and post ads not displayed)

-mediafire ad (always displayed before download in any case)
-random text shortcut ads (part of internal malware of the each user's browser instalation, ie not related to the site at all)
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Post by qwertymodo Sun 1 May 2016 - 18:04

So the ads are configured by the hosting company and completely outside of the site admins control?  That is a really, REALLY sh***y setup on so many levels.  This is not a case of malware on my machine, it's a case of scripted ads targeting mobile browsers.  Running scripts on your site that you have no control over is, to be blunt, incredibly irresponsible.  There have been dozens, if not hundreds of documented cases of exactly these kind of ad scripts being directly responsible for the spread of malware.

Try loading this site in Chrome on Android and browse around for a bit, see how long it takes you to get redirected to the Google Play store to download some random app.  And that's WITH popups blocked.  I'm not talking about mediafire links either, just clicking on threads. If the ad settings are different for mods or whatever, just do it while logged out. I just tried it and managed to click on a board, then on a single thread before having it happen. On average, I make it about 3 clicks max without a redirect. It's terrible.
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Post by Mr.x Sun 1 May 2016 - 18:49

Yep, sounds dumb. This is something that really needs to be fixed.

Try the firefox add-ons called NoScript and addblock plus, those should do the trick but doesn't fix the issue at hand for other users. SePH should be contacted via email about this because he's taken leave on the site.

Mr.x
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Post by qwertymodo Sun 1 May 2016 - 19:03

All of the adblockers I've tried on Android require all kinds of weird system-level config changes, like setting up a global proxy, only work over WiFi, and other weird restrictions. I think Chrome supports disabling Javascript on a site-by-site basis, but without the option to fine tune it, it tends to break a ton of things.
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Post by Floki Thu 9 Jun 2016 - 21:35

Ads at the end of the threads should be disabled now.

Can't do much about those at the top unless a man would pay for it.


Last edited by Jaqen H'ghar on Fri 10 Jun 2016 - 0:29; edited 1 time in total

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Post by qwertymodo Thu 9 Jun 2016 - 22:35

I don't really care that there *are* ads, that much I can understand. It's just the mobile junkware force-redirect ads that are problematic. I'm not sure if those were the banners at the top or the in-thread ones.
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Post by Floki Thu 9 Jun 2016 - 23:05

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^^A man is pretty sure it was the sponsored content's fault as it was turned on for guests and don't remember seeing this setting when we started the board years ago.

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Post by SunGodPortal Fri 10 Jun 2016 - 0:10

Do they not make a mobile form of AdBlock?
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Post by Floki Fri 10 Jun 2016 - 0:28

A man has no idea, but he also had popup issues on his mobile phone for the past few months since those ads at the bottom of posts appeared.

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