# Does Adobe Flash Player automatically generate advertisements when you visit a website? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 7, 2014, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-adobe-flash-player-automatically-generate-advertisements-when-you-visit-a-website/692531 "2014-07-07T12:19:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-adobe-flash-player-automatically-generate-advertisements-when-you-visit-a-website/692531/1 "2014-07-07T12:19:04Z")
I’ll admit I am not as “hip” as most of the SDMB members and this could be something that an SDMB member discovered a decade ago. Nevertheless, sometimes when I am at a website, it seems an ad is generated that is _not_ originating from the website and it is _always_ being displayed via Adobe Flash Player. Is this Adobe’s way of generating more revenue for themselves? By that I mean, are they gaining revenue through advertisers in this way? These Flash Player pop-up ads seriously interfere with web-surfing (either slowing it down or outright crashing a browser). Any answers would be appreciated. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-adobe-flash-player-automatically-generate-advertisements-when-you-visit-a-website/692531/2 "2014-07-07T12:44:09Z")
Flash pop-up ads originate from the web pages that you see them over. (Well, unless you have malware, maybe.) What makes you think they do not? ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-adobe-flash-player-automatically-generate-advertisements-when-you-visit-a-website/692531/3 "2014-07-07T13:20:11Z")
Adobe flash doesn’t generate advertisements on its own. It’s just a flash player. It pays flash content. That’s all it does. Ads can be flash content. So can regular parts of the web page. The ads you are seeing are probably either generated by the web site you are visiting or else you might have malware installed on your computer that is generating the ads. It is theoretically possible that your ISP is inserting ads as well, but that’s pretty rare. Usually that only happens on free internet connections. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2014, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-adobe-flash-player-automatically-generate-advertisements-when-you-visit-a-website/692531/4 "2014-07-08T11:03:42Z")
Thanks for the replies. This even happens when I visit my _own_ website which has ads but none of this intrusive Adobe Flash Player junk. Guess I should investigate further. Again, thanks. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2014, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-adobe-flash-player-automatically-generate-advertisements-when-you-visit-a-website/692531/5 "2014-07-08T11:31:45Z")
> [@wolf\_meister](#): > > Thanks for the replies. > This even happens when I visit my _own_ website which has ads but none of this intrusive Adobe Flash Player junk. > Guess I should investigate further. > Again, thanks. 🙂 Sounds like malware, then. Run Malwarebytes.