Automatic redirects to ads/ad sites from StangNet

Darkwriter77

Resident Ranting Negative Nancy
5 Year Member
Jul 1, 2005
311
293
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Apache Junction, AZ
WTF is this crap, lately? As if the "OMG! No wayyyyy!" audible smiley ads weren't obnoxious enough, now we've got automatic redirects to advertisements? Every other time I go to click "Back" or to exit a thread to a different forum, I get a full-page ad for crap like Classmates.com, some Zwinky crap, smiley things, or whatever else. And it says something to the effect of "Your page will display soon," but it NEVER DOES. :mad: :fuss: :notnice:

This happens with both Internet Explorer AND Firefox and on both my work AND home computers. Is this some new gimmicky trick they're using, or is this ad method actually being allowed by Stangnet? :shrug:
 
Your PC and/or browser is infected with malware of sorts. StangNet (and its affiliates for that matter) is not in the business of hosting content/ads/etc that disrupt the normal user's browsing experience.
 
Malware/adware/virus scans have revealed nothing on my home system. This is ONLY happening on Stangnet, and only when I change screens. It DOES redirect me to a full-page ad - I just had one for Chili's just now before I went to this thread - and it gives you the option of waiting for the ad, or you can click a little thing after a few seconds that allows you to "skip ad," and then it brings you back to Stangnet. I'm tellin' ya', this is not a malware issue, this is an advertisement issue. Malware doesn't affect your system exclusively on one website.
 
Screenshot would help, we do not allow full screen ads which all they do is show you an ad and redirect to the actual page after X seconds. Would have to see the ad and the URL and then could track it down.

I doubt it is us, but anything is possible.

I live on the website and have never seen this in action.
 
AHA! See? See? I'm not crazy! See? :banana:

View attachment 248748

This apparently happens after clicking around so many threads. If you only log in and click one or two threads, it doesn't tend to happen, but if you're like me and spend hours at a time on Stangnet bouncing from thread to thread because you have nothing else to do (3-day weekends with no projects, yayyyyy), then you run across this at least a couple times. This happened when I was inside a thread in Fight Club and clicked the Fight Club heading to go back to the current thread topic listing.

I was never a huge fan of Chili's before. Now I'm even less of a fan of them. :notnice:
 
yep thats the same thing ive been getting. usualy for classmate.com

Yeah, I've had this for Classmates, Zwinky things, smileys, Chili's, and one other ad I can't remember. I never noticed at the time, but I'm thinking it might be related to whatever banner ad is showing at the same time. I've tried clicking on the banner ads being displayed onscreen at the moment and I don't get anything like this, so I know it's not just me accidentally clicking the wrong thing. :shrug:

Any way to hover over the Skip This or Replay link and let me see URLs to try and hunt down.

I'll see if I can get it to pop up again and I'll post another screenshot here in a minute...
 
Here's another one. Doesn't seem to show a URL when I'm over the "Skip Ad" or "Replay Ad" items, says the same thing on both. It's apparently a Java script that associates with whatever animated ad is playing at the bottom of the screen near the Quick Reply box. These ads I'm getting are of the same brands n' such that I normally see down there, so I'm thinking they're related.

View attachment 248740
 
i got the zwinky one today at lunch. they seem to come up at random.

I'm starting to think it goes by how many times you click in and out of threads, like there's some kind of a counter. If I get on Stangnet and click around just a few things, then bounce out to another site for awhile and then come back, I don't get it; if I just hang around on here clicking a bunch of different threads, though, I'll inevitably get one after ... I dunno, maybe 10 clicks? Almost always seems to happen when I click the heading of a forum at the top of the screen, like:

Mustang Forums at StangNet > General Site Forums > Support Forums > Feedback Area | Testing Zone > Automatic redirects to ads/ad sites from Stangnet

...if I click the "Testing Zone" part of it to get out of the thread and back to the forum to list other threads, that's when I get it - not when I click the "Back" button on my browser.
 
Finally caught a URL by hovering over the Back button:

http://a.tribalfusion.com/p.media/uAmM7i5EY73Wir56fInUbZcYVrUYsnXX

Don't know if the above will work as a link or not. For some reason, my IE browser here at work gets hung up on those ads and won't progress to allow the "skip ad" option to pop up after a couple of seconds, making this thing especially annoying; on Firefox, at least it does allow that "skip ad" thing and isn't quite such a delay, otherwise I have to back up like three screens or so. :notnice: