Problems with Ads Redirecting?
Hello Everyone! The subject has recently come up that people are starting to get redirected to E-Bay when they are clicking a link here at HHoW, along with problems with some of the ads. I’ve done some looking in to why this is happening and found some things that will be helpful to everyone. First, here’s what it is: a few months ago, the host of our forum, Forumer, switched to a new type of advertising. Up until that point, we had been receiving Google Ads on our forum (the four little text ads at the top of the page). Well, that has changed to a different advertising service. Google Ads pick up certain key words. So, if we were on a page talking about House’s prescriptions, the ads would be about cheap pharmaceutical products and would probably be linked to questionable websites. Forumer changed their advertising service to prevent ads that could be considered malicious or cause problems with your computers. In the process however, this is what has started the E-Bay redirect on the Forumer forums. And it’s not just us; any forum hosted by them right now is having the same problem. We can request to be audited by Forumer to see if we can switch back, but we’d have to eliminate anything dealing with ships, fanfic, pharmaceutical products, and some of the general discussions as well (and personally, I’m not giving up any of those). In other words, in order for us to get Google Ads back, we have to be suitable for a five year old to read the board. Not that a five year old would read the board, but that’s the level of filtering needed. So, in the interest of you all, here are some things that can help you to block the ads. 1.) Get a lesser-known web browser. I use FireFox and really like it. Safari is also another really good one, and comes with most Macs, however, FireFox is also Mac compatible. 2.) Use an ad-blocker. I use AdBlock Plus, which is an extension that is an option to download with FireFox. It looks like Forumer is using .rmxads. so if you can add that to your filter, it will help. 3.) Use a firewall and virus scan. These two are general prerequisites today for the internet, but make sure they’re updated. I use McAfee, but AVG has a really good free version as well that is probably better than any of the top commercial security software right now. And don’t just have it running, regularly check your settings, update, and run the software on a scheduled basis. Hope this all helps. If you have any questions, concerns or other stuff, feel free to comment in this thread. arizonamyrie, interim chic tech geek

I am almost completely unable to browse HHOW from my iphone today because of ads redirecting me the instant the page finishes loading. Do ad blockers even exist for Safari on iPhone? Is anyone else having this problem? I understand that ads are necessary to keep the board running, but how can it be okay for the ads to interfere with it this badly? :?

I'm having the same problem and I'm using IE on my laptop.

I've discovered that if you stop loading the page just before it finishes, it won't redirect... If I miss that window of time on the iPhone it's still a big pain because the page has to reload when I go back, but if you're on a computer it might be a little more helpful.

I don't yet know how to answer the iPhone problem yet, but the solution to the IE problem on the laptop is this: Firefox Once you get Firefox, download the addon called Adblock Plus. Every moderator here uses these. I'll keep looking on the iPhone problem, but I'm sure there's a way to set ads to be blocked or something in Safari. ETA: Also if you've been running IE this long, you might want to update your virus and spyware scanners and run thorough scans tonight. IE has more security holes than a colander.

I understand that ads are necessary to keep the board running, but how can it be okay for the ads to interfere with it this badly? I went back and reread this, and feel the need to mention that HHoW does not have control over advertisements on here, which is why us moderators endorse using Firefox with the addon Adblock Plus. These two things usually prevent/fix 99% of the problems with the board. The advertisements are put in place by Forumer, our hosting site and it is through them and friends in IT that I have to work to find your solution. In the meantime, I am going to assume that there is some setting in your iPhone's web browser that you can set to disable ads or at least images for awhile. In theory, disabling images might help prevent the ad from redirecting you to another site. ETA: Kitty, try this forum thread.