Here are some screenshots of the ads I got along with the automatic download this morning. 10:04 AM ET.
A. The beginning of this thread, including the OP, has several regulars who clearly are accessing the site (including the SD home page, not just the SDMB home page) sans adblockers. The OP has been around for 8 years with over 1000 posts.
I wouldn’t suggest they are stupid for one second.
B. Adblocking is not available to many people.
E.g., for Android, a proper adblocker requires root access. I presume iOS is similar. (That’s 99% of the market for recent mobile phone sales.)
(Although I have the skills to root a device once an exploit is available, I am hesitant to do it after one bad experience. I would advise most people against it.)
A lot of people have PCs, e.g., work computers, where the ability to install software including browser addons is prevented.
I wouldn’t suggest they are “stupid” either for merely being unable to use an adblocker.
File downloads aren’t supposed to be happening. If this occurs again, please tell us the name of the advertiser (or provide a snip of the ad or the URL of the page you were redirected to or any other identifying info you have) and we’ll get this stopped. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Sorta an off-topic question, so apologies in advance . . .
Is the problem with ads on the Dope (i.e. the evil ones) basically restricted to those members accessing the site through a cell phone? Or does it occur to much the same degree even when you’re using lap/desktops and the like?
I only have issues on a PC. I use tapatalk on my phone. Tapatalk is capable of serving ads, but for whatever reason, doesn’t do so for this site.
I’ve had to scrub my laptop 3 times because of malware from this site before I started using an adblocker.
No, I was equating the ad companies that run ads that wreck computers with scum.
I don’t use an ad blocker. I know exactly what I am doing. It isn’t a matter of stupid. I expect the companies I do business with to meet certain standards. One of those is not bombarding me with pop ups. If a company does so, I simply go elsewhere. The only reason I haven’t dumped the 'Dope yet is that I have been coming here for a long time. However, my page views are way down due to this problem.
The rational response should be ‘Hey, one of our advertisers is trying to force downloads to our customers! Stop all the ads until we locate the problem and ban that advertiser!’.
Of course, that’ll never happen.
Slee
All it takes though is one malicious ad to infect your computer. If you visit a site, not knowing that they have these kinds of ads and get infected, then going elsewhere ain’t gonna do shit.
I have the expertise to handle that should it occur. I do this sort of thing for a living.
I find it rather interesting in that I run basic security, my broswers locked down appropriately, and basically never have problems with viri or malware. The problems I have encountered all came from me trusting files from people who ought to know better (specifically my sister, a programmer) and it has been a couple years since I last had a problem. I stopped opening attachments from sis on non-virtual machines and all has been well.
I routinely clean up out breaks at work. I have dealt with large ‘holyshit, shut all the ports on the switches now until we find the source’ outbreaks as well as ‘Some guy in Russia is attacking the network, pop on an unused tfep (terminal front end processor, which could hold roughly 45,000 connections) and ping it till it dies’. That particular case took about 2 seconds. Hell, this week I’ve have had two instance of folks in Russia (or at least originating in Russia, they could have been physically a block away from me) attcking one of my ftp servers. Since it was Russia and we don’t do business there, I blocked the whole block of ips from the originating ISPs. Solved that problem.
However, my skills aren’t the point. The point is the powers that be at the SDMB know one of their advertisers is serving suspicious ads and they haven’t shut it off. If the ptb do not know which advertiser is responsible, then all ads ought to be shut off until the source is found. Period.
The answer ‘Run adblock because we don’t vet our advertisers and they might infect your computer’ or ‘Hey, tell us which ad we are serving to you that is maleware so we can do something’ is unacceptable.
Slee
The former is a better answer than “Pay up so you don’t get infected.”
This problem has been ongoing for a while now, why not switch to a new provider? A lot of small-medium sites I visit use Project Wonderful (details for site owners) and it’s pretty reputable. I’m okay with turning off adblock on Project Wonderful sites, and have never had a problem with ads from them. It basically runs off a system where time on your site is auctioned off to interested parties, who look for sites based on their content.
You don’t have to worry about clicks or anything with this system, you get paid a flat rate based on however much your site’s time auctions for. This also means that you could boast that Dopers themselves could even try and buy a slot through them if they want to market something to fellow Dopers (we have the Marketplace, of course, but it’s another avenue).
Ads through this provider generally tend to be really well targeted to the demographics and content of the site. You can, of course, also veto ads you don’t want showing up for whatever reason and I think it just goes to the next highest bidder.
Does anyone know of a reliable ad blocker for Android? I have no trouble on my pc but the android tablet decided to give me a download this morning and I don’t know what ad blocker to put on there (since the Dope appears to be leaving this problem in place for the foreseeable future). Thanks.
I just got hit with the download.pdf on my Android phone, as well. I wasn’t expecting it and ended up accidentally clicking the “download” notification and opening the file. It opened in the default PDF viewer (which I think is QuickOffice), and displayed a blank PDF. I checked my system for suspicious apps but didn’t find any. It shouldn’t have been able to install an app anyway since I only allow apps from the Play Store.
I emailed the file to myself through Gmail. It didn’t get filtered out by Gmail’s virus scanner. I downloaded it to my laptop and scanned the parent folder with Windows Defender, which also came up empty. I opened it in NotePad++ to see if there was anything obvious in it, but I don’t know enough about PDF files to know if it contains anything malicious. It’s very small (106 lines), and mostly looks like a bunch of header code. I’m not sure whether it’s just an empty PDF or actually contains malicious code. I’m also unclear on whether Android can actually be infected via a PDF with Untrusted Apps disabled.
It only downloaded a second time for me with an incognito tab open, so it’s possible that the presence of absence of a specific cookie is triggering the download.
If any of the mods want me to PM them the text contents of the suspicious PDF, let me know.
I’m using Dee browser on my phone. It’s not as elegant as Firefox or Chrome, but it does an outstanding job of completely blocking all ads on the Straight Dope. It’s available in the Play Store, so no worries about installing an untrusted app.
Thanks for the tip. Incidentally, I don’t just want to block ads because they might infect my computer. I want to block ads for the same reason I either mute the tv or fast forward the recording when ads come on: I am not interested in viewing ads. I have been visiting sites on my tablet without an ad blocker and I have not gotten infected but I have found a lot of crap in the air that I never have to look at on my PC.
So where is the official response to this? Not a peep from anyone in an official capacity.
Even though I’m a paid member, I find myself coming here less and less, in part because the site is not very mobile friendly (and I loathe Tapatalk) and the fact that I have to actually be concerned with malware on a site I’ve been a member and fan of for almost a decade really chaps my ass. It’s not hard to make a site profitable enough to just cover traffic loads and hositng costs, it just takes some planning and regular attention.
Thanks, I’d already reported the post. I didn’t stick around long enough to see what ad it was. I don’t see that stuff on my desktop, but it’s every time I visit the column page using Chrome on android. Not going back there again until I’ve actually had a staff response. Given the dates between complaints it’s an ongoing thing, so until they change the whole ad paradigm I won’t be recommending the site or visiting on mobile.
One hell of a way to drive away potential readers and longtime users alike. I’m sure it’s the parent company and their bean counters, I can’t imagine the site management itself wants this. I’m being charitable and assuming their hands are tied.
There seems to be an inconsistency with what devices are affected. First I noticed the autoplay videos that would not stop, and my iPhone gave me no problems just one single popup. Then it got to a point where when I used my iPhone I got a redirection where I couldn’t even get to the boards, but it doesn’t happen all the time. I just bought a new laptop and it just gives me the one popup that I can exit out of with a click and that is it.