Malicious Pop Up Ad?

I have read so many posts and responses, I want to carve my eyes out. The reason I am not responding to any of those particular posts and creating an entirely new one is that I am not even sure if this issue is being fixed and which forum I should respond to.

I have been working on a forum here on forumotion to help the business I work at. We are a candy company that have distributors all over the United States. It was my goal to create a portal (another site I am making) so that they can better communicate with each other. I wanted to add a forum to this so I found forumotion and liked what I saw on the outside. I have successfully created my forum for them to use and was getting ready to start registering them... Until this problem arose and I am scared to have them on the site in general.

Malicious ads. Or are they ads? I'm not even sure. All I know is that, once a day (as far as I know), per computer, I will get onto my forum and the first tab/link/whatever that I click to access more of my forum pops up a new tab on my browser with numerous versions of the same sort of thing telling me I have malicious software trying to delete my hard drive or putting viruses on my computer. Now I'm not stupid. I know that they are fake and are scare tactics to make you want to click on the "OK" and/or call the numbers associated. I can get out of them just fine (after being crafty about getting around them) but I KNOW that these older distributors are NOT going to be like me. I do not want to put anyone in this sort of danger by going to, what should be, a safe and protected forum for their use.

I have a screenshot of the one that popped up today... https://i.servimg.com/u/f97/19/52/39/04/malici10.png

Please let me know what other information I can give. I need this site to be ready for them to use soon, but I do not feel at ease knowing this could happen on their screens, putting them in danger. That and I don't really want hate mail in my inbox with a slew of complaints.

Thanks so much! Sorry for the giant post. I'm at my wits end here.

Hello i can help you on this matter.

there is 2 ways to stop this.

One is to buy credits from your ACP and remove all ad's from your site for members and guests, this is a one year subscription and will need to be set up again every year.

The next way to clear this is to get more members. then when you have about 10 members and its used more then this popup will go away and it will just keep the banner Ad's on your site.

The popup system is safe to your computer and will only show up once a day to any one that logs on to your site after this one time it will stop.

After your have got more traffic going in and on your site this will go away.

I hope that clears up your Worries and concerns.

APE

Ok. So I understand that it will go away with more traffic and activity. And I understand that I could buy away the ads...

But I really want to know, then, why is this sort of popup even allowed? Even though you say it is safe for a computer (yeah, when you ignore it), but so many of my members will probably not know what to do, freak out, and then will stop coming all together.

I want to be assured (without being forced to pay) that these popups will NOT pop up on their computer for their sanity and perceived "safeness."

I don't mind the ads on the site like the banners. That's normal to have. I get it. But it's those stupid open-a-new-tab-with-some-alarm-sound-to-make-you-click-on-things-you-shouldn't-and-you-have-to-be-crafty-to-close ones that need to be dealt with.

My company said they are willing to pay the year subscription, but NO user should EVER be forced to pay their way out of perceived danger to use a site. Ads are one thing - popups that could create issues are an entirely different circumstance, and you guys need to control that.

Thank you for your time and answering me in a timely fashion. I do appreciate that. I like your guys' forums. That is really the only qualm I have so far.

Ok. New Thing... Related but new.

I just tested this... So you have 2 sections to buy off ads: one for registered members only and one for guests and members. Now I was thinking. "I don't need to worry about guests because this is extremely private and no guest will be on this site without logging in.... Oh. Logging in = Guest Mode. Does that mean my members will get that special one bad popup by clicking the login button?"

So I tested it. Went to another computer because I know for a fact it happens once a day per computer. Sure enough... I put in my credentials, hit log in, and that bad popup rears its ugly head. Fantastic.

That means that in order for my members to be safe FULLY, i will need to spend 2x as much just so that that FIRST click of "log in" isn't the one that triggers it. Because, I know, it IS the first click on the website. Doesn't matter where. If it's the first link/button/whatever that is clicked to access more of the site, it WILL pop that malicious ad up.

So I find that kind of unfair... I am trying to get rid of that ONE popup by paying for 12 months of free ads for only my registered users and it STILL wouldn't be enough... I hate to be a bother, but doesn't that seem just a tad bit ridiculous? I can't be the only one that feels that way, right?

All your forum new members will get this until your forum is getting used more then that popup should go away.

So say you have 20 members make an account on your forum and 5 of then and your self log in then the system will stop that one popup a day.

your forum needs to be active for about 10 to 14 days then your popup should go away.

Now for paying credits.
If you pay to remove all ad's for members and guests then the banner on to top part of your forum will go away for one year.

Now that popup system is installed in that banner setting and that will be remove aswell. Now if that just set to Members that have logged in then it will still pop up until your forum is used more by other members.

so really little money the best way to fix this is to pay a small amount of money to stop all ad's on your forum this not only stops the popup for everyone but it makes your site look better also.

The ad's and the popup is away to make our host the money to keep the site free to you and everyone else.

I know this don't look nice to you but its the way it is and it will not change "We need to make money to keep the sites FREE" and we are not the only ones that have this system all FREE forums now do the same but we limit to one a day until you site is used more others just let them keep coming.

EDIT:

i just see your other post.

Can you Please screen shot the one making that bad sound so i can see what one it is

I say that as we had a problem some time back and it was a problem and we had to have it removed by our As;s provider.

also adding a thread on your forum will help your members know that its safe to red cross the ad's

I don't mean to be rude... But I would like to be frank.

I don't think you understand... Yes, your site needs money from the ads. Yes, that is how many other sites do it. Yes, I am fine with ads because I know I am getting this service for free... But let me tell you something... This is one of the first sites I have ever been on that brings up a new tab with malicious intent. This is not an ad. It should never be an ad.

Let's go to the dictionary on this... Ad or Advertisement means "a paid announcement, as of goods for sale, in newspapers or magazines, on radio or television, etc." Advertisements are meant to be little pictures or words that, when clicked, lead to a site where that advertised product is sold. This popup saying that my computer is in danger if I don't do something like call them or click to have my computer scanned is not truthful nor selling me anything. It cannot be considered as such.

Going back to your reason for that being there... I see no reason for it. You can have ads that pay for the site WITHOUT needing some seemingly dangerous popup every day you login.

You can tell me until you are blue in the face that it is necessary for your site's revenue. I will keep saying that no it isn't. No other free service site with ads runs this way. And I can't afford to let my lack-of-technology-know-how distributors to be susceptible to this attack.

I do thank you for responding back to me. I really don't mean to sound like I am attacking you, but I can't tell you enough how frustrated I am at this development. It is a dangerous popup (I refuse to call it an ad anymore) that is forcing users to pay 2x the usual ad-free subscription for members just to make sure its users are actually safe.

EDIT:

When I see the popup with the noise again, I will screenshot it for you.

Yes please send me this and any other popups you get so i can see if there is a problem with our Ad's host.

the problem we have is we don't see this ad.
Please can you get the URL of the popup aswell this will help us send this on to our team.

So to be clear we need you to send the following info to me.

URL of your forum:
URL of the Ad's:
Screen shots of the ad's:

we will then send this on to our team to look at for you.

Hello,

I think what you are mentioning is a pop under. See your forum has 0 point of activity, so the system thinks there's nobobody on this forum and display this ad when someone open the page. This pop under appears once or twice a day by visitor (IP address), to get rid of this is really simple, you just have to post a few messages (2 or 3 should be enough) to gain some activity points.

Hello @Leviosa i think the problem is what i have seen lots of times and there was a report some time this year but i can't find it.

The popup is not really the problem its what the popup has in it that is the real problem.

This one popup says something like please install this flash player from Adobe Flash Player but the ad's make a really bad sound on it and makes you think you have to install this to keep your computer safe.

We have had this problem before and google made a system to block our sites if they was in the forum popup system.

Now if i remember right we sent data to our Ad's provider and had this removed and blocked our end.

but without the info from this member we can't do anything as not all of us see the problem.

Hello,

@SpyroShurtagul, you're right! We implemented onclick pop-under ads on inactive forums (0 point) to don't penalize active forums with new ads. To don't have the onclick pop-under ads, you have two solutions: post a message from time to time or remove all ads with credits.

BUT it isn't normal to have malicious content with this ad format... Some members sent us the link of malicious pop-ups and we asked to our ad partner to block this malicious campaign. So if you or your members have malicious content, like a malicious software, please provide us all information: link of your forum, link of the ad, time and country, a screenshot.

On this way, you can help us to block the malicious contents! Because according to the country, we don't have the same pops.

Best,

Thank you everyone for your responses. I appreciate the help I am receiving...

A couple of responses I have... Posts-wise. I have made some posts but that's when the popups started showing up. In order to get points, am I allowed to make a post and then delete it as a form of activity? I don't have anything to say as a topic as of yet as I was going to let my distributors do all of the talking, ergo the activity. But if it works to post and then delete to make points/activity, then I can do that...

As for the popups, I will try my best to get screenshots of them. I was going to send one today, but, for some reason, nothing came up today. I hope that's a good sign.

My forum is at http://mtnmandistrib.forumotion.com/.

I know we'll be paying to not have ads for our registered users at the least. I just want to make sure, too, that they won't get these weird popups when they are logging in in guest mode.

Once again, thank you for the responses! I look forward to hearing some new updates and I will post the screenshots, etc when I encounter them.

Hi again!

This one isn't malicious, but this is the popup for the day on my computer. Haha! I'm not as concerned with this one.

URL of Pop Up:
http://install.stream-it.online/?pid=51611&clickid=10754391541475597333&subid=1242764

Screenshot:
https://i.servimg.com/u/f97/19/52/39/04/stream10.png

We need the one that is making the bad sound and any ad's that ask you to install something like flash player and Things that say your computer is infected then we will try and get them removed