Those are intentional as part of a trial our ad publisher is running but they should not be playing sound unless you unmute them manually and should disappear automatically after they're done (though you can close them early as well). Are you not seeing this behavior?
Two of those kinds of ads appeared today and they didn't autoplay sounds and disappeared after they ended. Sure they can get in the way but they're not the worst kinds of ads that you'll experience.
Also, about those malicious "win a free phone/money", they seem to exclusively have the .top and .xyz domains when the popup hijacks your browser and/or forces you onto the "spin to claim your prize" page. Not sure if this'll be of any help or if any of the other non-redirecting ads have those as well, but I thought I'd just bring that up.
I appreciate that detail - I'll see if we can use that to help. Have you continued to see them on mobile?
I encountered two of them today. One on TSR, the other on a news site.
Damn it. I was hoping we had put an end to them on here... I'll keep at it.
I meant to say I saw then earlier before I initially posted the message saying what domain names they came from. But if they do re-emerge with a different one I’ll let ya know ASAP.
Please don't report spam on the forum here - that's what the report button on individual posts is for. This is for reporting invasive or malicious advertisements that make it onto the individual sites.
They're spam bots posting on the forum - the report system in the forum is there to handle those issues directly. This thread exists because unfortunately, there is no report button for individual advertisements (i.e. the banner ads shown on the site). It's not a big deal but to help keep things organized, it's best to use the most appropriate tool for the job.
We'll be testing out a new ad publisher come May 1 so hopefully, we'll see less of these soon.
05-01-2018, 12:42 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-01-2018, 12:42 AM by Petie.)
The new tags we're testing out are now in. Each ad now comes with its own report ad button which can be used to directly report malicious ads (though you are still welcome to mention them here as well). I'm working on figuring out how to better position that link so bearing mind that it might currently be a little hard to click for some placements but I will hopefully have a solution to that soon.
Thanks, Petie. Glad to have an advertisement report system in place on the site.