Adverts... again...

Kipi · Post by **Kipi** » Sat May 02, 2009 3:12 pm

Okay, I have two questions:

First of all, does anyone else have problems with type of ads that makes some random words underlined, and if you hover your mouse over the word you get popup advert? See the pic attached for better details. Haven't noticed this anywhere else, and it gets annoying if lots of words gets linked this way. Also, at least twice the advert link has replaced the original link, thus making it impossible to use the link without refreshing.

Second question:

I don't mind that much what the ads actually advertise if the format is not offensive, but as the GB is known to be a site for every age, is it acceptable that most of the times the ads are about Viagra or such medicines? Just wondering, that's all. Basically, there ain't hardly any other ads anymore.

So... am I the only one suffering from these problems? Or has anyone else experienced these?

swcarter · Post by **swcarter** » Sat May 02, 2009 3:21 pm

That's interesting. I don't get the word ads at all, and I haven't really noticed the Viagra ads. I always seem to get the "rules for a flat stomach" ads.

SWC

DesR85 · Post by **DesR85** » Sat May 02, 2009 10:31 pm

Don't think I encountered any of those ads so far. Maybe the clicksor ad some time ago, but I've yet to bump into the Viagra ones.

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Sun May 03, 2009 1:22 am

Haven't seen those "word -> advert" myself, but if it something in rotation, it should be removed fast.

LitShadowolf · Post by **LitShadowolf** » Sat May 30, 2009 8:36 pm

Word advertisements aren't showing up on my computer. I think you might have some adware on your computer or browser.

Kipi · Post by **Kipi** » Sat May 30, 2009 9:10 pm

LitShadowolf wrote:Word advertisements aren't showing up on my computer. I think you might have some adware on your computer or browser.

Probably in browser, though I wonder why it triggers only here in GB...

On the other hand, the viagra ads have vanished almost totally (I may see one at times, but that's very rarely now) when at one period I didn't get anything but those.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sat May 30, 2009 9:20 pm

Kipi, I suggest installing Ad-Aware to see if you've got any adware on your system. It's a great product that I've used for several years, and it's free.

Post by **BuckGB** » Sat May 30, 2009 9:30 pm

If you determine that the word advertisements are GB-specific, please let me know. I've never given my consent to these types of ads, so they shouldn't be showing up regardless of your region. If they are, I'll make sure they get removed.

Kipi · Post by **Kipi** » Sat May 30, 2009 10:24 pm

Okay, did some googling, and found some interesting things about Clicksor.

First of all, it's popup type of ad, and the site owner must enable popups for this ad system to work. Also, as I gathered, the site owner must allow Clicksor before it will work. Now, I don't know well enough if all the advertising code for this site is coming from UGO or not, but if I understand correctly that if those do, and UGO has Clicksor account, then GB should also "suffer" from it in normal situation.

Problems with Clicksor | The Webmaster Forums

And here is how it works:

Clicksor Contextual Advertising Technology

I also gathered that if you disable popups, then you shouldn't get clicksor ads. So perhaps that's one reason hardly any of you have ever seen those?
I'm not that keen on disabling popups just because of GB, as usually I have one page of GB open all the time my browser is open, but I still want to get those legit popups which I wanted. That would also explain why I don't get those ads when using IE while browsing GB, as I ahve turned popups off from IE.

I'll try Ad-Aware now, but I found references from difference sites that as it's not spyware or adware, Ad-Aware probably won't find anything strange...

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Sun May 31, 2009 1:59 am

I've still not experienced this myself, so if it is UGO specific, it is regional specific. And the words game/games get typed alot, so many people would notice if it was on GB I think

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Sun May 31, 2009 5:38 am

Things a running smoothly for me at the moment. I've noticed that the banner ad at the top of the page is now displaying UGO's own banner aa lot at the moment, so I suspect they've had to replace at least one problematic one for this region. I haven't seen the 'Advertisement Loading' message all day so far today.

Post by **BuckGB** » Sun May 31, 2009 8:10 am

I've made UGO aware of the ads, Kipi. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this tomorrow when the appropriate people return to work.

Post by **BuckGB** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 2:13 pm

Kipi,

UGO has assured me that they have absolutely no relationship with Clicksor in any region, so these text-based rollover ads are most likely a result of some sort of adware on your computer.

Can you investigate this a bit more and shoot me an email or PM with the results? If nothing else, we can probably contact Clicksor directly to get to the bottom of it.

fable · Post by **fable** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 2:22 pm

Kipi wrote:I'll try Ad-Aware now, but I found references from difference sites that as it's not spyware or adware, Ad-Aware probably won't find anything strange...

That's true, but did Ad-Aware bring up anything on a full scan? If it's something else, I suggest Kaspersky Internet Security. As anti-virus stuff goes it's a bit nervy, but you can configure it to ignore what it perceives as vulnerabilities. And it's extremely good at sniffing out and killing trojans, etc.

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 3:08 pm

I use Kaspersky's security suite and it is *excellent*
Since adopting it a couple of years ago I have not had any kind of malware infections at all.

You might also want to try [url="http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html"]Spyware Blaster.[/url]
Rather than being a removal tool it keeps junk form getting on your computer in the first place.

Kipi · Post by **Kipi** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 7:08 am

BuckGB wrote:Kipi,

UGO has assured me that they have absolutely no relationship with Clicksor in any region, so these text-based rollover ads are most likely a result of some sort of adware on your computer.

Can you investigate this a bit more and shoot me an email or PM with the results? If nothing else, we can probably contact Clicksor directly to get to the bottom of it.

Thanks.

I will investigate this more, perhaps even have one of my dad's friends to check my computer, as he is very good at this kind of things, and surely has softwares good enough to track this down. But I'll update this thread when I know more.

Oh, and if it's indeed adware that has caused appearance of clicksor, then probably just removing it and traces of clicksor should help, and thus no need to contact Clicksor (yet). Though if the problem reappears, then I think I just should do that.

Kipi · Post by **Kipi** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 9:29 pm

Okay, finally something to update to this matter.

First of all, for a background info, I started using Chrome as my browser due the fact that it's faster, and more simple. (I don't need all those bells and whistles IE and Opera has). Since then, the amount of Clicksor ads got to the sky. Basically, I wasn't able to view single page from here without having all those ads. But again, the problem was only in GB, nowhere else did I see those.

I contacted my dads friend week ago, as I was getting really annoyed, and he told me that it could be virus, and he could check my computer, but it would take couple of weeks before he would be able to do that. Instead, he suggested several things for me:

1) Clear all IE cookies both through the browser and manually. This didn't help.
2) Do the same with Opera. Again, no help.
3) Run three different commercial programs (F-Secure, which I already had, Kaspersky and Norton, and the guy was able to get me demo license for full features lasting two weeks). Couple of viruses found and destroyed, but didn't help.
4) Run Avast. I had already done that, and it didn't find anything, but decided to do that again, this time turning off my internet connection. Left it running while I had work shift, and as I just returned, it had found one troijan. Booted computer, and no trace of Clicksor so far.

So I suspect it was actually virus causing all the trouble, and very nasty one as I had to run 3 different commercial programs and Avast! twice before solving it. So far, even while using Chrome, seen no trace of it, and yesterday it was infesting every page of GB.

Also, not sure if it has anything to do with matter, but as Clicksor is actually java based thing (figured it out with Chrome, as it shows what it loads better than IE and Opera), and I had java disabled totally in IE and in some extent in Opera, I had only now and then the ads, but as it's not possible to turn java off in Chrome (something to do with how Chrome works and makes it faster), I got it all the time.

Yet, even though the problem is solved, I'm still rather curious why GB was the only place showing it?

Post by **BuckGB** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 10:15 pm

Kipi wrote:Yet, even though the problem is solved, I'm still rather curious why GB was the only place showing it?

Hard to say. I'm not sure what sites you visit, but it could just be the nature of the many video game-related terms we produce here on GB. They seem to be popular search terms for such text advertising.

Another reason might be that it's a global conspiracy being orchestrated by Fable and Weasel. If that's the case, it's good you were able to remove the trojan. They will no doubt be moving on to something far more sinister in the coming days.

Foss · Post by **Foss** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 9:11 am

Thought it would be best to use this thread.

In the last few days I sometimes experience that my browser automatically change page to this below me when I go onto the main page of Gamebanshee:
This is one of them.

So, I go to GameBanshee and then a second after it switches to a white page with an add like the one above. The one above is one of those it has switched too.

swcarter · Post by **swcarter** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 4:14 am

I've been having trouble with the square Coraline ad. It doesn't stay in its box, and it makes it impossible to click on links.

SWC