Chrome Malware Warning

[NinjaCow64]

Using Chrome, I get a malware warning that some Malware from Moderator Action: *snip* has infected the site whenever I visit http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=320037&page=7

Another guy who uses Chrome has the same problem. You might want to investigate it.

 

[mechaerik]

I also get it. I'd guess its probably from an image or something linked in someone's post; something similar happened a while back in Imperium Offtopicum but the poster edited out the image once warnings started appearing.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Don't know if it's related but all of a sudden my Android browser is getting jacked by intrusive popup ads.

 

[The_J]

Get also a warning in FF when I try to directly open the image.
Therefore I've removed the image, and also the URL to the site here in the thread.

While McAfee site advisor and web of trust don't say anything bad about the site, it's just safer to remove it for now (can be put back again later).
Might be that google just has again a false positive for a site (which e.g. also happened for Apolyton more than once). We'll see that in a few days.
(after looking now at the whois and alexa entries, I guess this is really a false positive)

 

[Zelig]

Chrome is adware, you probably shouldn't use it.

 

[Quintillus]

See posts 7 and 8 from this thread: there are warnings about a thread that's been here for years, and is a commonly-used reference/utility thread which hasn't been updated in months. My guess is it's an issue with one or more of the ads. Though it could possibly be a Google issue - I haven't seen anything myself with Opera and the ads blocked.

(I'd like to not block ads on CFC, but I've literally never seen more issues with ads on a non-shady site than at CFC, and ultimately avoiding malware is more important)

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I have to agree that the constant issues with malware in ads and such at CFC is endlessly infuriating. Is there not a more reputable ad service ThunderFall can go with?

 

[The_J]

See posts 7 and 8 from this thread: there are warnings about a thread that's been here for years, and is a commonly-used reference/utility thread which hasn't been updated in months. My guess is it's an issue with one or more of the ads. Though it could possibly be a Google issue - I haven't seen anything myself with Opera and the ads blocked.

...did anyone tell Steph? Because it seems that it's the site where he is hosting his content which is blacklisted by google.
(Told him now)

I have to agree that the constant issues with malware in ads and such at CFC is endlessly infuriating. Is there not a more reputable ad service ThunderFall can go with?

...what would you recommend instead of google ads?

And this issue here has by the way nothing to do with the advertisement.
It's about websites, which users link here in the threads. You cannot do anything against that.

 

[Quintillus]

...did anyone tell Steph? Because it seems that it's the site where he is hosting his content which is blacklisted by google.
(Told him now)

Huh... seems that Google is suspicious of Steph's site in particular. That's surprising; I'd considered Steph's site trustworthy (and still can't find anything suspicious there) and free.fr seemed like a safe choice of host, too. Though Firefox has more details about the "why" than Google does.

Given the historical trustworthiness of Steph's site and free.fr in general, and the historical issues with ads, the latter seemed to be the more likely source of the problem. IIRC, the specific Google Ads used here are DoubleClick, right? Maybe it would be possible to use some other division of Google Ads? Or possibly Yahoo, Microsoft, or AOL's offerings? I'm not sure which if any would be preferable, just that what we've had here since at least when I joined has a poor track record in regards to suspicious activity, autoplayed audio/video ads, and the like. Maybe DanQ can help; I can't recall Apolyton having similar issues.

 

[The_J]

Given the historical trustworthiness of Steph's site and free.fr in general, and the historical issues with ads, the latter seemed to be the more likely source of the problem.

From the computer science point of view this doesn't compute.
The URL itself is flagged as malicious, no way to get around that.
Might be a false positive. The site host should be able to resolve it.

IIRC, the specific Google Ads used here are DoubleClick, right? Maybe it would be possible to use some other division of Google Ads? Or possibly Yahoo, Microsoft, or AOL's offerings?

There's only google ads (unless you go mobile AFAIK), and the others aren't better either.

 

[Zelig]

There's only google ads (unless you go mobile AFAIK), and the others aren't better either.

So why, of the dozen or so forums that I follow, is it only ever an issue on CFC?

 

[The_J]

What exactly?
The described problem here has nothing to do with the ads, so not sure to what you're referring.

 

[Zelig]

What exactly?

People complaining about malware, which seems to originate from the ads.

It's makes the whole site look really dodgy. (The complaining, I don't allow ads.)

 

[The_J]

Maybe the people here are just all security aware and use better virus scanners ?
Okay, seriously, no idea .
The ads come via google, like for probably the majority of all sites out there, so there's no difference at that part .