Advertising Concern - Malware Being Offered

Advertising Concern - Malware Being Offered

atians, I'm not sure what you're referring to. We don't advertise or offer malware. If an ad is flagging as potential malware, please let us know specifically which one (a screen shot would be helpful.)

Apparently my text did not post, just the title. I can’t post images because there is nothing there to click on – just the words: “Upload Images to your reply” and hitting CTRL does nothing. I do have three images. The first site was updatingdriversnow dot com, and their line was ‘it is recommended to have Java to continue’. (They had the Java logo also.) The second site was Softonika dot com, and it was trying to get you to install Adobe Flash Player updates.

This has only happened while I’ve been on DG. It has occurred 5 times and twice I had to relog onto DG (the other three times I had duplicate windows opened.)

I'm not sure what happened to my original text, when I previewed it was there. Fortunately I still have it and it was as follows:

Recently I've been auto forwarded to an advertisement on a totally new page that tells me I need, for instance, “Java” and that I should click to download it. The ad is the only thing on the page and the only option is to click download. There is another similar ad, probably the same company. By the way, I already have “Java” (and it’s updated).

These ads try to appear to be from DG, trying to get you to do something “you need” to use DG better; or even try to appear to be from reputable companies such as Java. They do state in the fine, blurred out print that they want to install a monitoring system? on your computer. (I believe this is in reality a tracking system that can better spam you with ads.) This is both deceptive and extremely aggravating. If they had a legitimate product they would be upfront about it. There is nothing on the page declaring this is a paid advertisement. There is nothing on the page allowing you to go back to where you were, and when use your browsers ‘back button’ you get a “this page is expired” message.

I don’t believe this type of advertising has a place on a quality site such as DG. Nor do I believe that anyone would knowingly want to install this company’s program (that’s why they try to deceive people), it appears to be spam malware. Further, it will undoubtedly harm ones enjoyment of DG and every other site to which they go.

Please protect your members and remove these ‘malware’ advertisements. Thank you.

I have had the same thing happen several times- I was viewing something on DG, did not click anything, but was sent to a page to install software. I think it was Java, and I think I just used the browser back button to get back to DG. If it happens again, I'll update this message.

I realize Java is necessary, but I really wish someone would come up with a better alternative as it is constantly requiring updates for security reasons. The last time I updated Java I wasn't careful during the install and it installed malware and other unwanted software on my laptop.

I will mention this when I talk to our tech today, but those do not look like legitimate ads that we would run. Any chance you've you've inadvertently picked up something somewhere along the way?

I'm sure you know this already, but for the benefit of others reading this, it's always a good idea to have a good anti-virus program running all the time, and periodically run a malware scan. Personally I have ad-blocking extensions installed on every browser I use, so I rarely see any ads (let alone popups) anywhere I venture on the wild world of the web :-)

And we give our paid subscribers the option of turning off some or all ads on DG.

SallieKR, thanks for your response, it’s always nice to know you’re not the only one. I would just like to verify that these ads are in no way from the legitimate company, nor are they helping in loading Java for instance, or even updates. (By the way, one of the things that make Java good is their updating against the ever changing threats. Just a necessary evil that we have to accept those updates.)
I believe I could attach an image to this reply, check it out.

I asked about this on our weekly conference call today and as I suspected, the techs are confident that message is not coming from our site, even though you may have first seen it pop up while you were accessing DG.

Personally, I would recommend running a malwarebytes (or other trusted malware-scanning tool) and make sure you haven't picked up something you don't need or want.

Yes, malwarebytes is great. I have it on my PC, but maybe not on this laptop. I'll be sure to check and be sure it's installed. I do have the MS Security essentials installed but, from past experience, I know it doesn't catch the malware! I'll check tomorrow, make sure it's installed, and let you know if it finds anything.

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edit:
I installed the full version of malwarebytes- my husband reminded me that we'd used the 3 licenses he'd purchased. I'll let you know if I see any more problems!

I also purposely used contractions and it looks like no edit problems due to the single quotes :-)


This message was edited Aug 20, 2014 9:39 PM

Even though these ads have only come up when I was on DG, it's pretty obvious that it is an isolated problem and not an issue with DG. That is good for all but perhaps two of us - oh well.
When this happened I ran a thorough virus check and a Malwarebytes check also. Both showed no problem.

Terry thanks for verifying this with your techs and for following up with me personally as well. :)

Again, this malware issue is obviously NOT coming from DG.