The Ad That Must Not Be Named...

[ABSpareEditor]

As we are all well aware we have had an incredibly irritating issue with a particularly clever ad that seemed determined to interrupt specific people on our lovely site.

We have been working hard over the weekend to get to the root of this. And our techie gnomes have discovered it likes to be named, so any threads naming this ad (beginning with a 'g', and ending with an 's') were triggering the ad to show.

For this reason we have deleted all threads, both old and new, that mention this terrible ad by name. It's not that we're deleting your threads because we don't care - quite the opposite!

The advice of 'please clear your cache' still stands true, if you have seen the ad, please clear your cache (comment below if you need any help on your specific browser, but a quick google should help you). And let's never talk of this terrible ad again! Doing so will cause it to rear it's ugly head!

[Bigbad]

10.10
Still happening, only stays on AB for a nano second! Ads are:

Garden Lines, Fisher investments, Newchic

Cleared history, cleared cache, emptied trash, restarted computer.


10.30.
Still happening.

Garden Lines, Quote Search, Fisher Investments , but now between threads instead of right hand side of screen.

I don’t remember ever seeing an a*** advert.

I’ll try again later.

[ToraToraTora]

ED they don’t have to use the actual site name then can use direct IP address injection for example.
Just scanning for the unmentionable text is probably futile

[ToraToraTora]

Ali express is the culprit, kill it!

[Bigbad]

13.10.
Still happening. Same ads. No sign of A exp. ad, though.

[AB Editor]

Is this still happening for people, and if so has it happened since you last cleared your cache?

[Bertrum]

On the computer I used to check this through it had the same problem with GS. The problem occurs on an advert switch over it happens so quickly you don’t always get to see what the new adverts are
When I blocked GS I get to see what adverts are displayed and I can still see the Ali X Advert, scrolling up or down becomes intermittent and that dam awful song pops up and if I am unfortunate enough to get two Ali X ads at the same time I get two of the same song playing over the top of each other
I cleared temp files and cookies then reset IE I ran Malwarebytes and Antivirus nothing was found and flushed DNS.
I still had the same problem it is worse on IE but it does occur in Firefox on occasions.
As you had said you had blocked Ali X I decided to run Ccleaner and zap everything just in case anything lurking but to no avail.
Will post a video of what’s happening if that will be of any use

[ToraToraTora]

still happenninhg

[AB Editor]

Right, I've made some more changes trying to eliminate this thing. Please let me know if you see the offending page from now onwards (and clear your cache if you have seen it before).

[Barmaid]

Running windows 10 and FF. Cleared Cache and no longer seeing it. It DID pop up a few times over the last couple of weeks but no probls now.

[Peter Pedant]

BM - forgot to say - happy moving in this weekend PP

[Bigbad]

Once again - cleared history, cleared cache, emptied trash, restarted computer.
Still happening, and now the site is showing in my history. It wasn’t before.
Have cleared cache whilst both online and offline, neither make any difference.

When the offending site comes up (constantly), I sometimes get a banner at the top that says:

Your browser blocks some 3rd party cookies by default. By clicking on this page you allow our partner ****** to place its cookies and serve personalized ads. You can read more or disable ****** ads here. This notice only appears once.

I starred out a word twice, just in case it’s a trigger. This is it backwards oetirC.

[Bertrum]

Still the same here happening more on IE than FF but FF has a much bigger range of adverts than IE
By the way the Ali X is not clickable the others are

[Jahulaye]

Maybe those are are being targeted should try and access ab from another compute not in their homes otteork places where this is happening like a friends/ family member or Internet cafe and logging in there, this would then maybe point that the problem isn’t ab but their own computers or ip addresses.

[Jahulaye]

I’m which case this mystery is narrowed down considerably.

[Jahulaye]

“It's still AB's problem though.“

Not sure on the answer to that, but if ab has now “closed the drawbridge” as it were then using another computer where this doesn’t happen to them then points to some kind of virus targeting their IP address or something wreaking havoc deep within the dark recesses of their computers.

Can the users access ab problem free from other devices as their phones/ tablets using WiFi at the locations of where this problem hits them on their computers?