Aggressive pop-up coming from this site

Soresha · #1 03-29-2008, 05:09 AM

I have several times now seen the same aggressive pop-up when I'm on these forums.

It pops up bottom right on the screen pretending to be a system tray type of alert, and minimises the main Firefox window and won't let you get back to it. It redirects to: http://xponlinescanner.com/2008/1/_f...p?aid=77011806

First time I saw it I did a full anti-virus and malware scan on my PC and found nothing. However I am now convinced it is something from this site, probably from the banner ads?

Today I was writing a post, hit the preview button and it activated. As a result of this I lost the text I had written. I am sure the nice people running this site do not need to be told how unacceptable this is, I believe it is far more likely you just don't know it's happening.

I had previously allowed this site to use pop-ups because the PM alerts are useful. (Erm, I'm assuming these are actually pop-ups - ?) I have now blocked pop-ups again on this site. If someone is able to post a reply here saying this matter has been dealt with and the offending content removed I will happily unblock them again, but not before.

Thank you,

Soresha

Aalwein · #2 03-29-2008, 06:16 AM

I'm a premium member and use firefox +ad-block anyway so I don't see these popups. But I'm sure if you can tell Cairenn which ad is the bad egg, she would immediately cut ties with them.

Daeanor · #3 03-29-2008, 09:36 AM

I doubt it came from here. I am not a premium user, and I have never even gotten a message that a popup was attempting to display here, let alone actually doing so. run a thorough adware check, there is something in your system.

Hootmon · #4 03-29-2008, 11:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daeanor

I am not a premium user, and I have never even gotten a message that a popup was attempting to display here, let alone actually doing so.

Same here.

Sounds like something on your system, Soresha.

Soresha · #5 03-29-2008, 01:42 PM

I did run a thorough adware check, I mentioned that in my post. And I've seen it 3 times now, each time when viewing these forums.

The last time it happened was a direct result of clicking the preview button after writing the text for a post. Unfortunately I can't see what ad was being loaded because I never got the intended preview page, so I can't tell you which one is responsible.

Howry · #6 03-29-2008, 02:00 PM

I dont have the problem either. Try running a couple different adaware programs. Adaware and Spybot are both good choices IMO.

***Cairenn*** · #7 03-29-2008, 03:47 PM

Hi Soresha,

We are aware that some people are getting these annoying ads. Our parent company is trying to track down where they are coming from so they can get them removed from the ad rotation.

Can you give me a little more information please? What country are you from? (Different areas of the world get different rotations) Can you give me the exact time that it showed up for you today?

You're completely right though, these types of ads are *not* something we want on our site. Thank you for reporting it, I'm going to be forwarding this information along to our parent company so it will hopefully help them track it down to get rid of it.

/me growls at yucky ads.

Soresha · #8 03-29-2008, 07:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cairenn

Hi Soresha,

We are aware that some people are getting these annoying ads. Our parent company is trying to track down where they are coming from so they can get them removed from the ad rotation.

Can you give me a little more information please? What country are you from? (Different areas of the world get different rotations) Can you give me the exact time that it showed up for you today?

You're completely right though, these types of ads are *not* something we want on our site. Thank you for reporting it, I'm going to be forwarding this information along to our parent company so it will hopefully help them track it down to get rid of it.

/me growls at yucky ads.

Thank you for being honest and confirming it is a problem on the site. And the different ad rotations clearly explain why some people are getting this and not others.

I'm in the UK, and the closest I can get to a time would be based on the reply I was trying to write. I don't know if you can get anything from your logs for the first time I was writing it?

I was attempting to preview a reply to this post:
http://www.vginterface.com/forums/sh...&postcount=160

After hitting the ad, I rewrote my reply which was then posted here:
http://www.vginterface.com/forums/sh...&postcount=162

So the time of hitting the ad would be roughly around 5 minutes before that reply was posted.

Hope that helps,

Soresha

***Cairenn*** · #9 03-29-2008, 09:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soresha

Thank you for being honest and confirming it is a problem on the site. And the different ad rotations clearly explain why some people are getting this and not others.

I'm in the UK, and the closest I can get to a time would be based on the reply I was trying to write. I don't know if you can get anything from your logs for the first time I was writing it?

I was attempting to preview a reply to this post:
http://www.vginterface.com/forums/sh...&postcount=160

After hitting the ad, I rewrote my reply which was then posted here:
http://www.vginterface.com/forums/sh...&postcount=162

So the time of hitting the ad would be roughly around 5 minutes before that reply was posted.

Hope that helps,

Soresha

We've never lied to you guys before, we're not about to start now. These ads are plaguing us, too, we want them gone as badly as you do.

I'm not surprised to hear that you are in the UK, it does seem to be our international ad provider that is causing the problem, every other report I've heard has been by non-North American users as well, but thank you for the confirmation.

Looking at the post you pointed to, it was about 5:15am eastern that it showed up for you. I'll forward this additional information along to our parent company.

I'm sorry about this, please hang in there with us, we *are* trying to get rid of it.

Is there any chance that you are using FireFox as your browser? If you are, would you be willing to consider adding the plug-in "FireBug"? Using that plugin, if the ad shows up again you can use Firebug to help get the exact information on what ad provider is pushing it. If you'd rather not, that is absolutely fine, just the more information we can get the better our chance of getting rid of it.

Soresha · #10 03-30-2008, 06:22 AM

I got an email notification about a reply on the InfoMap thread, and followed this link in the email:
http://www.vginterface.com/forums/sh...2&goto=newpost

Then that ad came up again, so much for blocking pop-ups. Maybe it can't catch them if you're linking from outside the browser. Also it went to the same url as before.

My PC said the time was 12:01, that would be about 20 minutes before the time when this post is submitted.

So anyway, I'm game. I do use Firefox, I've just installed Firebug and I'll go find out how to use it. I'll re-enable the pop-ups... let's see if we can catch this little $%?$ in the act.